Obama: "The Surge Worked, But I'm Still Right"

The surge is the issue that hurts the Obama campaign the most, in my opinion. He is asked about it in almost every interview, and he is forced to try to explain how the surge worked, but somehow he was still right.

I almost felt sorry for Obama, struggling to make this point on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos":

George: "But given all you just said, how do you escape the logic... you said that we succeeded in Iraq beyond our wildest dreams... how do you escape the logic that that means John McCain was right about the surge?"

Obama: "You, it's interesting to me why people are so focused on what's happened in the last year and half, and not in the last five."

George: "No, granted, you think you made the right decision going in... but about the surge."

Obama: "But they're connected George, and here's why. My whole premise has always been that it was a distraction for us to go into Iraq. Once we were there we had to make the best of a bad situation."

George: "And didn't the surge do that?"

Obama: "And what I have said is, at the time that we made the decision to go into the surge, that it did not address the underlying problem of the unwillingness of the Iraqis, to overcome their political differences and reconcile."

George: "15 out of the 18 benchmarks were met."

Obama: "And to provide the kind of strategy that would allow us to move forward. That wasn't part of the package on the surge. So, if the question is, has the surge done much better than we expected, in combination with these other factors, then the answer is yes, and I've said this repeatedly. But if the question is what was the judgement to be made at the time it was put forward by the Bush administration. My choice, and John McCain's choice was, are we going to continue to give George Bush a blank check without any strategy for political reconciliation, or are we going to try to pressure this administration to come up with a more coherent, cohesive plan for how we were going to wind this war down."

I'm not sure I understand his point (maybe it's too nuanced for a feeble mind like mine to understand), but what I think I heard was basically this:

"Yes, the surge worked. But it was still the right decision not to trust that it was going to work, given the fact that it was promoted by Bush, who is always wrong about everything. So McCain was wrong to think that the surge was going to work, even though it did. It was bad judgment to think that it would work. The only correct judgment to be made at the time was that we should begin to wind the war down (ie. decreasing troop numbers), instead of surging in more troops, even though it seems now that surging in more troops actually helped us wind the war down more rapidly. That result was not predictable, and therefore it was wrong the predict it, even if it turned out to be true."

Sure... OK. I guess that's a good enough answer to at least get the questioner to move on to the next topic, which clearly is the only way for him to save any face talking about the surge.

As for the other points he made.

The question of whether the war should have been started largely favors Obama, although there are still a minority who believe it was the right thing to do. Still, that is just changing the subject. And, it should be noted that McCain opposed Rumsfeld's strategy from the beginning. Who knows how the war would have turned out if McCain had his way from the beginning.

As for the perceived failure of the surge to address political reconciliation, why, then is the Iraq government now talking about us leaving, if the surge didn't significantly improve the political situation there? If you haven't noticed, there are political tensions in the US also. It was the violence that was the problem. As long as there is reduced violence, I'm content with letting the Iraqi's sort out their own political issues just as we do.

Obama alluded to, and others have explicitly stated, the argument that even McCain and Bush couldn't have hoped for the success that we've seen in the surge. I don't see any evidence of that, but even if it were true, good for them for being cautiously optimistic when they should have just been optimistic.

My advice to Obama: just admit you were wrong and get it over with. The longer you don't, the more you will be asked this question and be forced to give these sorts of awkward answers. I respect the fact that Obama stood up against the war when it was unpopular to do so. I also respect that McCain supported the surge when it was unpopular. So let's call it a draw and move on.

One might ask why I'm not calling on McCain to admit he was wrong about the war in general. The answer is that it is that McCain presumably still thinks that the war was the right thing to do, and will take the political heat for that. But Obama admits that the surge worked, but still defends his vote against it. It's the fact that Obama wants to have it both ways that bothers me. I'd respect his opinion more (although I would disagree with it) if he contended that the surge didn't work. At least then he would be consistent.