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It came as no shock or surprise when Sen. Obama did a sudden flip-flop on the war in Iraq. While his left-wing supporters touted his firm opposition to the war, it became apparent to all that the candidate knew this position was no longer acceptable to the mainstream voter.
Now, it would appear that Obama would rather forget the surge and his own history of bad-mouthing it, since the offensive succeeded in bringing military stability to Iraq. Obama did not say he was wrong in opposing the surge; instead he elected to dodge the issue by grudgingly admitting the military move worked as planned.
Today, Obama swears he will stick to a timetable of rotating troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan. There are several things wrong with his new proposed strategy.
First, while Obama is playing armchair general, second-guessing why there is an Taliban offensive in Afghanistan, the reality is that this is a result of the U.S. success in Iraq. Al-Qaida forces fleeing Iraq have been redeployed inside Afghanistan staging a last desperate stand in its own back yard.
Secondly, the offense in Afghanistan is a failure for al-Qaida because it was a trap that they have fallen into. The Taliban and al-Qaida forces have not been successful in anything but short spurts and withdrawals. They have been forced from all the gains that they made with the extra forces, taking great numbers of casualties. In fact the terrorists have lost several top members of the leadership.
Third, redeploying the forces from Iraq is not only a logistic nightmare but also the wrong kind of tactics for the Afghan theater. The heavy armor and tank forces deployed in Iraq are not only useless in the mountainous Afghanistan; they would be easy targets for insurgent attacks. The Army ground mobile units in Iraq are designed to fight in the open desert and in crowded cities, neither of which are the main battlegrounds of Afghanistan.
Finally, there is the political factor at home. What Obama does not say about his supporters is the fact that they not only oppose the war in Iraq but they also oppose the war in Afghanistan.
- Charles R. Smith
All this points to several key factors about Obama. His inexperience in things military is more than obvious. Yet, his flip also shows the freshman senator is barely out of diapers politically. Instead of negotiating to a new position, Obama has withdrawn in a hasty and clumsy retreat from a core election promise.
While this fact has not been pushed hard by the mainstream media, who are still in love with the darling icon, the failure on the political battlefield by Obama is more than apparent to his supporters and his opponent. McCain is already bombarding Obama with "I told you so" and the infamous "flipper" label is beginning to stick.