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...the four Democratic Presidential candidates' stunning display of misinformation and false statements about the surge Saturday evening is that they have simply stopped thinking about Iraq. They seem to have concluded that opposition to the war permits them to literally not know what the U.S. or the Iraqis are doing there. As the nation commences the selection of an American President, this is a phenomenon worth noting.
Barack Obama is of a sudden the front-runner, so his view of the surge merits the closest look. His first assertion echoed what has become a standard line by the war's opponents, that "we have not made ourselves safer as a consequence." What can this possibly mean? In more than six years there hasn't been one successful terrorist attack on the U.S., even as places elsewhere were hit or actively targeted.
Then Senator Obama placidly said that the Sunnis in Anbar Province began to help the U.S. "after the Democrats were elected in 2006." What's more, the Democrats' victory showed them they were "going to be left very vulnerable to the Shias." This obviously means the Democrats would abandon them.
But the Sunni Awakening, as it is called, with its fall in bloodshed, occurred only after the Anbar Sunnis were convinced that the U.S. troops would not abandon them to al Qaeda in Iraq. Sunni sheiks have said explicitly it was the new U.S. policy of sustaining the offensive against AQI that made it possible for them to resist the jihadists. The U.S. military has supported the spread of these "awakening councils" in other areas of Iraq. It is navel-gazing in the extreme for Mr. Obama to suggest U.S. Congressional elections caused this turn.
But Barack is a beacon of clarity compared to the bat-guano ka-raaazy donkey-squat Bill Richardson, formerly of sound mind & good repute, spews onto the campaign dais:
Governor Bill Richardson, who touts his foreign policy credentials, in the space of a minute made five false statements about Iraq. He asserted "zero" internal reconciliation, "zero" progress on sharing oil revenue, "zero" regional elections, "no" increased effort by the government to train their own security forces and "no" effort to push back against Iran. One can certainly question what the Iraqis have done in all these areas, but to reduce the last year to a nullity isn't worthy of a serious candidate.
John Edwards is habitually wrong on almost everything and consistently purveys half-truths and outright lies in his own gibberish at the lectern:
"If you look at what happened in Iraq," said John Edwards, you'll see that violence fell after the British withdrew from "where those troops were located." This is precisely the opposite of what happened. The Brits were located in southern Basra province, and their drawdown began last month after what U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband at the handover ceremony called a "massive" decline in insurgent activity. Mr. Edwards's view that a troop pullout will reduce Iraq's violence is unique among public figures anywhere.
A good sum-up follows:
In different ways one can explain the views of these three. Senator Obama seems to be talking his way toward believing that eloquence and credibility are the same thing; Mr. Edwards's campaign is aggressively parochial in its interests; and Bill Richardson used the debate Saturday to blow up the remnants of his campaign.
Not that it probably matters, but the final strawperson or stick-figure foreign policy guru in the Democratic Party, contributed her own habitual obfuscations and doubletalk on foreign policy:
That leaves Senator Hillary Clinton, the one of these four whose "experience" should have insulated her from fantastic statements. As is her wont, it is difficult to pin down precisely what she said.
Reminded of her famous September remark to General Petraeus that only a "willing suspension of disbelief" could show that the surge had done any good, she replied "that's right," adding that the surge had failed to create "space" for political reconciliation. But at the Iraqi grassroots there has been a great movement toward a modus vivendi, resulting in much of the reduction in violence.
Perhaps catching the exuberance of her debate mates, Mrs. Clinton then said there was no reason troops "should remain beyond, you know, today." President Bush and the Iraqis recently announced a plan to negotiate a long-term presence by some U.S. troops. Would these candidates walk away from that commitment?
The editorial finally poses the question. Are the Democratic candidates sincere or are they playing to their imagined audiences?
Even allowing for the stresses of the endless campaign, these responses are astonishing. Has the self-directedness of these candidates gone so deep that they now believe they can get away with saying anything at all on national TV?
We are not arguing that one had to agree with the surge or the Bush decision to go into Iraq. Dissent is a deep tradition in U.S. politics, and this war has become a bitter subject.
It is evident, though, that the opposition to Iraq after the Democrats won control of Congress in 2006 has put these candidates in a corner. For the past year, Democrats in both the Senate and House have enforced rock-solid party opposition to every jot and tittle of the Bush policy. They now have four candidates running for the U.S. Presidency who seem to believe it is to their political advantage to deny manifest reality.
Maybe the four lemmings are all mindlessly headed for a high dive over a high cliff into deep waters.
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