Robert Kaplan writes that if Obama is elected tomorrow, his first challenge will be Iraq, and the first thing he will have to do is ... be more like John McCain. Yes, it's weird, and I'll tell you why. But I'll also warn you -- if Obama is elected, get ready for a ton of people suggesting that he will have to move toward the right or the center if he wants to succeed, all facts to the contrary.
Anyways, Kaplan's view here is that al-Qaeda and the Iranians are going to jump at the chance to increase violence in Iraq once the new president is elected, "muddying" the success of the surge -- which is already quite muddy -- and then Obama will have to change his Iraq plan, which Kaplan implies is the result of political circumstance, not measured strategic thinking. To do otherwise, Kaplan writes, would telegraph the United States' weakness. He does not write what ought to be done, except that Obama ought to consolidate Bush's successes, not squander them.
If Kaplan is going to write that Obama should act like a leader rather than a candidate, he should offer more than than the following to explain what he means: "[Obama] needs to delicately withdraw from Iraq and move forces into Afghanistan while keeping Iraq on a low burner and quelling gradually the fires in Afghanistan. He can't do that by rushing for the exits." OK, but we know what Obama's plan is: a 16-month withdrawal. Is that a rush for the exits? Kaplan doesn't say.
If Obama wins this election, he will have a mandate to withdraw from Iraq. Frankly, it seems as though Kaplan would like to muddy that mandate by returning to the "stay if we're winning, stay if we're losing" cycle of foolishness that has characterized John McCain's campaign.
I'm not even convinced that Iran and al-Qaeda have the willingness or capacity to increase violence right now. If you take the view that both the transnational terrorist group and the country are inevitably pernicious actors, we would expect both to increase the level of violence now, before the election, as has happened in the past. It's likely both groups would rather see the belligerent and reactive McCain in office. But al-Qaeda, despite it's resurgence in Pakistan's tribal areas, does not seem to have the capacity to notably increase violence in Iraq right now. And Iran may very well see it in its interest to build a relationship with an American leader who has indicated a willingness to negotiate. Why would they try to create a situation that makes it all but impossible for him to do that? Similarly, groups in Iraq who have seen it in their political interest to stop fighting will not suddenly see violence in their interest again.
On the other hand, if there is an increase violence, measured withdrawal should continue. Military force in Iraq is not solving the political problems there. Kaplan worries that Obama will look like Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton, that he won't be taken seriously if he doesn't start making belligerent statements and erase the memory of his "tepid" response to the Georgian conflict (a statement that turned out to be much more responsible than McCain's). But what Kaplan doesn't get is that, while leaving Iraq may appear weak, staying there will actually make us weak -- our enemies would love nothing more than for us to continue our intractable occupation of Iraq as we lose lives and resources to no apparent gain.
True, we have a responsibility to leave behind some kind of stable state. We have fulfilled a good deal of that task, and will do more as we approach our 2010/2011 deadline for withdrawal. But there is only so much an outside force can impose, and we must now hope for Iraqi leaders to step up and begin taking on the responsibilities of joining with their countrymen and rebuilding their country. Those Iraqis who are doing so wish the U.S. to leave, and it behooves us to listen to them.
--Tim Fernholz
