The long distance barbs and ad wars among Clinton, Obama and McCain over which candidate possesses the greatest experience on national security among the three portends a much nastier confrontation in the months ahead given the vexing foreign policy challenges the next president will inherit.
Take, for instance, the recent McCain-Obama brickbats over Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Just a bit of history here.
Hatched after our invasion of Iraq, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials both in and out of Iraq, a shadow of its once fearsome self. It has shrunk into a much smaller Sunni extremist group, which was once led by Abu Musab Al Zarkawi, the so-called Prince of Al Qaeda, who swore allegiance to Osama Bin Laden, and met a timely death a year ago.
When justice came to Zarqarwi in the black of night, Al Qaeda lost its most bloodthirsty commander there, and it has never recovered from the blow. It is largely a spent force, even though suicide bombings are continuing in Iraq, and the city of Mosul remains ground zero in a bloody mop up operation by the combined forces of U.S. and Iraq.
McCain would like us to believe that the Al Qaeda in Iraq is the same Al Qaeda under Zarqarwi. But it is not, and Gen. Petreaeus has made it clear that Al Qaeda is largely a spent force.
Yet the debate over whether Al Qaeda is or is not in Iraq misses the broader point of what Republicans will charge a U.S. withdrawal under a Democratic president may portend for Iraq and the broader war against Al Qaeda.
Republican operatives are planning to "swiftboat" the Democratic nominee on Iraq and Al Qaeda. Mitt Romney gave us a taste during this appearance at the CPAC Summit, when he derided Democrats as a party willing to surrender to terror (using that as an alibi to justify his withdrawal).
Whether Clinton or Obama emerge as the frontrunner after tomorrow night's 4 state "son of super Tuesday' contests, Democrats must play offense on Al Qaeda in Iraq, Iraq itself, and the broader war against Al Qaeda. For in the struggle to defeat Al Qaeda, Sen. McCain and the Republican Party have largely served up a spent ammo bag.
Their record can be summed up as follows:
1.No attack on the homeland since 2001.
2.The surge in Iraq has dramatically quelled violence.
3.We have killed and captured a card stack of key Al Qaeda operatives.
If this is the best that McCain and the GOP will muster, Democrats have much to run on.
Why?
Bin Laden and his chief deputy are still at large, Afghanistan resembles Iraq of 2003, and according to the CIA, Al Qaeda has reconstituted itself, becoming a more lethal force than at anytime since 9/11 and the number of Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists have dramatically increased throughout the Muslim world.
So when it comes to Democrats taking the offensive, here are some words of advice when the argument resumes after tomorrow:
1. Concede the point on no attack on the homeland, but give credit where it is most due: to our first responders, a more diligent public, and the James Bond-like talent of the British counter-intelligence services that have broken up a number of home grown plots against the U.S.
2. McCain has tied his fortunes to the success of the military surge. But today's visit of Iran's president Ahmadenijad to Baghdad should be a wake up call to Americans that when our presence in Iraq dissipates, the surge will never stop Sunnis and Iran-backed Shiites from settling their scores after we eventually leave, with a Shiite-dominated government increasingly aligned with Iran and not the U.S. or our interests in the Middle East.
3. Afghanistan/Pakistan ("AfPak" for short), is where the ultimate fight against Al Qaeda must be waged, and as long as the surge continues, along with unyielding McCain determination to keep 140K troops in Iraq, there will never be enough troops to undo the damage to the AfPak campaign that the Bush/McCain surge in Iraq has cost us there. And Al Qaeda will continue to do precisely what the CIA has warned it is already doing.
Republicans, including McCain, are ideologically straight-jacketed from implementing a new, more effective approach against Al Qaeda. Nothing in McCain's speeches suggests that he will take his foot off the military pedal (which so far has not worked) and begin using a better "mil-dip" mix of fuel against Al Qaeda.
Democrats bring to the struggle against Al Qaeda a reinvigorated and imaginative determination to marshal both military and diplomatic forces and skills that the Bush/McCain policies have failed to deploy. McCain occasionally talks about it, but he then inflames the broader Muslim world every time he utters his repeated Guiliani-like sobriquet "Islamo-facists."
Take, for example, Pakistan. A new Democratic administration, freed from the failed Bush policies there, will forge an alliance with the newly elected government that despite its hesitation to use military force against Al Qaeda, will be more receptive once the hated U.S. supported Musharraf is gone. Already Bush/McCain are being discredited by the Pakistan's newly victorious leaders for propping up Musharraf despite an unpopularity that rivals that of Bush.
Moreover, throughout the Middle East, there is a palpable desire by Arab leaders to engage more productively with a new Democratic administration to forge common policies and goals against Al Qaeda and Islamic extremists who lurk in their midst. They view McCain as another militarist who will alienate more than embrace potential allies in the broader struggle.
When the GOP's "swiftboating" machine switches into higher gear, as it surely will after tomorrow, no time should be wasted putting a Democratic torpedo right up their exhaust pipe.
The Dems have compelling, logical, and damning arguments to take the offensive against McCain and to stay on the offensive. The 2004 campaign should be grounds alone for my fellow Dems to arm the tubes.