Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Wall Street Journal
April 15, 2008
Pg. 2
Capital Journal
By Gerald F. Seib
You may not have noticed, but the ground beneath this year's presidential campaign has just shifted, and on the all-important issue of Iraq.
On the surface, it may appear this change will work to the benefit of Democrats -- and to the detriment of Republican Sen. John McCain. But that isn't necessarily so. In fact, a new version of the Iraq debate is only beginning, and the advantage will go to the side that best frames it now.
Here's what has happened: For several months, it appeared that this year's general-election campaign would be held amid both a steady decline in the number of American troops in Iraq and a steady decline in violence there. Events this month have made it clear that that neither of those conditions is likely to hold.
First there was a nasty outbreak of Shiite-on-Shiite violence in Basra, followed by a botched attempt by the Iraqi government to quell the hostilities. As that experience suggested, the rest of the year is more likely to be marked by sporadic upticks in violence -- probably including violence surrounding Iraq's own provincial elections on Oct. 1 -- rather than by a neat downward trend in violence.
Then, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, recommended -- and President Bush embraced -- a plan to suspend withdrawals of American troops in July. That means the general-election debate won't come amid stories about a declining American presence in Iraq, but amid stories about troop levels stuck at 140,000.
This ensures a quite different campaign debate than seemed likely just weeks ago. At first glance, it might seem these changes inevitably damage Sen. McCain. He is, of course, an outspoken supporter of a generally unpopular war. More than that, he was a staunch advocate of last year's troop "surge," arguing that an influx of American troops would succeed in stabilizing the country.
To the extent the surge seemed to be reducing violence, and thereby creating a more stable Iraq from which the U.S. could extract troops, the McCain position was easier to defend. Now, sensing the shifting terrain, both Democratic presidential contenders, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have begun reiterating their argument that the U.S. simply needs to start withdrawing from Iraq, promptly.
Yet it isn't clear that events have given one side or the other an obvious advantage. Mostly, they have clarified the split between the two. Put bluntly, Sens. Obama and Clinton argue that the U.S. needs a plan to get out of Iraq, while Sen. McCain argues the U.S. needs a plan to win in Iraq.
It's far from clear which of these positions is more politically palatable. The question really is whether Americans think it's more important to get out of Iraq or to succeed in Iraq.
And that is "a very hard question to answer," says Andrew Kohut, a veteran pollster and president of the Pew Research Center. Recent Pew polling, Mr. Kohut says, has shown an almost even split on the question of whether Americans want to keep troops in Iraq until it is stable or to bring them home as soon as possible. That represents a shift in recent months away from those wanting an immediate withdrawal.
"The public certainly doesn't want troops there indefinitely, but a desire to succeed is implicit in their views about Iraq, too," Mr. Kohut says. "Bottom line, I say the public overall is divided between the two."
The McCain campaign, in fact, is calculating that Americans' desire for victory and fear of defeat is as strong as their desire to bring the troops home. The campaign's goal in coming months, advisers say, will be to persuade voters that violent episodes in Iraq represent blips, rather than a change in the overall positive trend line, and that abandoning an unstable Iraq would amount to a significant defeat for American interests.
"As you move to a general-election campaign, however unpopular the war is, however many people don't think we should have started it, we still believe the American people would prefer to see success than to see defeat," says one senior adviser to Sen. McCain. Moreover, rising concerns that Iran is fomenting some of the unrest in neighboring Iraq will make the Democrats' argument for a quick withdrawal a harder sell.
The problem for Sen. McCain is that he is better at explaining why the U.S. should prevail in Iraq than he is at explaining how that can happen. Put another way, his ability to describe the consequences of failure is better than his ability to sketch out a path to success.
Sens. Obama and Clinton have the same problem in reverse: They are better at explaining how they will get troops out than they are at describing how they will avoid the consequences of failure as they do so.
By Election Day, the advantage may well go to the candidate best able to describe what the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon calls a "conditions-based approach." Mr. O'Hanlon, a Democrat who supported President Bush's troop surge, argues that what is lacking in the current debate is an explanation -- a plan -- for how the U.S. can create the stable political conditions necessary for a safe withdrawal.
Somewhere between the stay-in versus get-out arguments, the competition remains very much open to see which candidate, Democrat or Republican, can seize that middle ground.
April 15, 2008
Pg. 2
Capital Journal
By Gerald F. Seib
You may not have noticed, but the ground beneath this year's presidential campaign has just shifted, and on the all-important issue of Iraq.
On the surface, it may appear this change will work to the benefit of Democrats -- and to the detriment of Republican Sen. John McCain. But that isn't necessarily so. In fact, a new version of the Iraq debate is only beginning, and the advantage will go to the side that best frames it now.
Here's what has happened: For several months, it appeared that this year's general-election campaign would be held amid both a steady decline in the number of American troops in Iraq and a steady decline in violence there. Events this month have made it clear that that neither of those conditions is likely to hold.
First there was a nasty outbreak of Shiite-on-Shiite violence in Basra, followed by a botched attempt by the Iraqi government to quell the hostilities. As that experience suggested, the rest of the year is more likely to be marked by sporadic upticks in violence -- probably including violence surrounding Iraq's own provincial elections on Oct. 1 -- rather than by a neat downward trend in violence.
Then, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, recommended -- and President Bush embraced -- a plan to suspend withdrawals of American troops in July. That means the general-election debate won't come amid stories about a declining American presence in Iraq, but amid stories about troop levels stuck at 140,000.
This ensures a quite different campaign debate than seemed likely just weeks ago. At first glance, it might seem these changes inevitably damage Sen. McCain. He is, of course, an outspoken supporter of a generally unpopular war. More than that, he was a staunch advocate of last year's troop "surge," arguing that an influx of American troops would succeed in stabilizing the country.
To the extent the surge seemed to be reducing violence, and thereby creating a more stable Iraq from which the U.S. could extract troops, the McCain position was easier to defend. Now, sensing the shifting terrain, both Democratic presidential contenders, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have begun reiterating their argument that the U.S. simply needs to start withdrawing from Iraq, promptly.
Yet it isn't clear that events have given one side or the other an obvious advantage. Mostly, they have clarified the split between the two. Put bluntly, Sens. Obama and Clinton argue that the U.S. needs a plan to get out of Iraq, while Sen. McCain argues the U.S. needs a plan to win in Iraq.
It's far from clear which of these positions is more politically palatable. The question really is whether Americans think it's more important to get out of Iraq or to succeed in Iraq.
And that is "a very hard question to answer," says Andrew Kohut, a veteran pollster and president of the Pew Research Center. Recent Pew polling, Mr. Kohut says, has shown an almost even split on the question of whether Americans want to keep troops in Iraq until it is stable or to bring them home as soon as possible. That represents a shift in recent months away from those wanting an immediate withdrawal.
"The public certainly doesn't want troops there indefinitely, but a desire to succeed is implicit in their views about Iraq, too," Mr. Kohut says. "Bottom line, I say the public overall is divided between the two."
The McCain campaign, in fact, is calculating that Americans' desire for victory and fear of defeat is as strong as their desire to bring the troops home. The campaign's goal in coming months, advisers say, will be to persuade voters that violent episodes in Iraq represent blips, rather than a change in the overall positive trend line, and that abandoning an unstable Iraq would amount to a significant defeat for American interests.
"As you move to a general-election campaign, however unpopular the war is, however many people don't think we should have started it, we still believe the American people would prefer to see success than to see defeat," says one senior adviser to Sen. McCain. Moreover, rising concerns that Iran is fomenting some of the unrest in neighboring Iraq will make the Democrats' argument for a quick withdrawal a harder sell.
The problem for Sen. McCain is that he is better at explaining why the U.S. should prevail in Iraq than he is at explaining how that can happen. Put another way, his ability to describe the consequences of failure is better than his ability to sketch out a path to success.
Sens. Obama and Clinton have the same problem in reverse: They are better at explaining how they will get troops out than they are at describing how they will avoid the consequences of failure as they do so.
By Election Day, the advantage may well go to the candidate best able to describe what the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon calls a "conditions-based approach." Mr. O'Hanlon, a Democrat who supported President Bush's troop surge, argues that what is lacking in the current debate is an explanation -- a plan -- for how the U.S. can create the stable political conditions necessary for a safe withdrawal.
Somewhere between the stay-in versus get-out arguments, the competition remains very much open to see which candidate, Democrat or Republican, can seize that middle ground.