like rain on your wedding day

Thomas Friedman on the irony that the success of the surge is helping Obama, not McCain:

McCain was right about the surge. It has helped to stabilize Iraq and create a better chance there for political reconciliation. But Iraq has always been a story full of surprises. And one of the most important political surprises is how quickly the surge has made Iraq safe for Barack Obama’s foreign policy...

So McCain, who called the surge right, may get little credit, because the story now is about post-surge Iraq. McCain’s post-surge view — which also may be right — is that Iraqis still do not have the military force capable of protecting their homeland and need more U.S. help in nation-building. Meanwhile, Obama, who was not a surge supporter and simply stuck to his 16-month withdrawal timetable, finds himself — by luck or smarts — in perfect harmony with the post-surge mood in Iraq.

How enraging for McCain. On the biggest foreign policy issue of the day, here's a stonking big judgement call that he got right and his opponent got wrong. His call was made despite political opinion being against him; Obama's was made in large part to pander to his own party. There shouldn't be any more argument about who's best qualified to run the country, or about who is the stronger character. And yet somehow the kid is getting away with it!

It will be enormously difficult, emotionally, for McCain to drag himself away from this subject. But somehow - for the reasons Friedman outlines - he must let it go. The debate has moved on.

Comments

[Rowland Manthorpe]

The political analysis is spot on.

And yet. Is the surge really working?

I know it's had tremendous success according to the metrics laid out by the US govt, but - as Peter Oborne's documentary showed (http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/I/iraq_the_reckoning/index.html) - arming and paying sectional militias very rarely ends happily in the long term.

I think Obama got it right when it really mattered, because he opposed this disasterous second front when it was first mooted.

[Jimbo]

Thomas Friedman has not been correct about any facet of this invasion and occupation. Not one. His FU (Friedman Units - 6 months) is legend and will be noted in Wikipedia very soon as a time measurement. Please don't gamble the entire country and planet on what this asshat says. Once he has been proven correct, then we can re-look - not before.

[Marbury]

Thank-you, Jimbo, for introducing me to a new insult: the 'ass-hat', defined by the urban dictionary as 'one whose head is so far up their rear end it could pass for a hat'. I like it.