- Sun. Sep. 7, 2008
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Iraq is back. The issue seemed to disappear during the early months of the presidential primary campaign. The deteriorating economy turned out to be a bigger concern to voters. But the Iraq issue was always there.
It helped John McCain and Barack Obama become front-runners. Most Republicans support the war. And on February 5, Super Tuesday, Republican primary voters whose top issue was Iraq voted for McCain. Democrats overwhelmingly oppose the war. On Super Tuesday, Democrats whose top issue was Iraq favored Obama, who has opposed the war from the beginning. If the election turns out to be a race between McCain and Obama, Iraq will offer a stark choice between an ardent supporter of President Bush's troop buildup and a staunch opponent of the war.
Last week, McCain acknowledged that his political fate is tied to the war issue. "I think that clearly my fortunes have a lot to do with what's happening in Iraq," he told a CNN reporter. McCain even said that if he can't convince war-weary Americans that U.S. policy in Iraq is succeeding, "then I lose, I lose." He quickly retracted that statement, perhaps because Americans continued to oppose the war by nearly 2-to-1 (64 percent to 34 percent in a CNN/Opinion Research poll taken in early February.
McCain went on the offensive after Obama said during the February 26 Democratic debate, "If Al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad."
The next day, McCain said, "Al Qaeda already has a base in Iraq. It is called Al Qaeda in Iraq." Obama's comeback: "I have some news for John McCain. There was no such thing as Al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq." McCain's retort: "That's history. That's the past.... What we should be talking about is what we're going to do now."
That debate is already beginning. The issue: Which poses a greater threat to U.S. security -- staying in Iraq or withdrawing from Iraq?
Democrats argue that the continued American troop presence in Iraq makes the United States the object of resentment in the Muslim world and helps recruit Islamic terrorists. They also say it distracts the U.S. from more-important missions. Last week, Obama said he intends to bring the war to an end "so that we can actually start going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and in the hills of Pakistan, like we should have been doing in the first place." McCain argues that a hasty withdrawal poses the greater threat. He said on February 27, "If we left Iraq, there's no doubt that Al Qaeda would then gain control of Iraq and pose a threat to the United States."
In two recent polls, one by CNN and the other by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News, Americans were asked who would handle the Iraq issue better, Obama or McCain. Both surveys gave McCain the edge -- not because most Americans agree with his support for the war, but because he is seen as having stronger national security credentials.
McCain is trying to turn every issue into a national security issue. When Hillary Rodham Clinton and Obama pledged in Ohio to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement if elected, McCain warned that such a move might antagonize the Canadians, who have 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. "We need our Canadian friends, and we need their continued support in Afghanistan," he said.
Meanwhile, Democrats are trying to turn national security issues into economic ones. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., warned, "It is becoming clear to all Americans -- Republicans, Democrats, and independents -- that by continuing to spend huge amounts on Iraq, we are prevented from spending on important goals and vital needs here at home." In the February 26 debate, Obama objected to "spending $12 billion a month that could be invested in the kinds of [domestic] programs that Senator Clinton and I are talking about."
With McCain as the Republican nominee, the Iraq issue is bound to come roaring back into the campaign -- one way or another.
