Obama on Training

It's been brought to my attention that Barack Obama's position on a training mission in Iraq is more clear than I'd thought. Here's Obama talking to Michael Gordon:

We’ve seen progress against AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq], but they are a resilient group and there’s the possibility that they might try to set up new bases. I think that we should have some strike capability. But that is a very narrow mission, that we get in the business of counter terrorism as opposed to counter insurgency and even on the training and logistics front, what I have said is, if we have not seen progress politically, then our training approach should be greatly circumscribed or eliminated.

I think that's exactly right. He goes on to say he does "not want us to be in the business of training and equipping factions or militias that are going to be turning on each other," but is willing to hold training and equipment out as a carrot for some kind of hypothetical post-reconciliation government. In short, Obama and Edwards both have the right policy on this and Clinton has the wrong one.

UPDATE: Armando in comments says he doesn't understand how Clinton's position differs from Edwards and Obama. The answer is that, as I understand it, Clinton still stands by her proposal to maintain residual forces in Iraq whose mission would unconditionally include "Training Iraqi security forces" and "Providing logistic support of Iraqi security forces." Clinton's plans echo CNAS's phased transition proposal whereas Obama and Edwards have evolved toward CAP's strategic reset proposal.

Comments

It's been brought to my attention that Barack Obama's position on a training mission in Iraq is clearly than I'd thought

I think there's a verb and possibly an adverb missing from this sentence.

Posted by moe99 | November 9, 2007 12:34 PM

Could you explain how Clinton's policy "on this" differs from Obamas and/or Edwards?

As far as I know, there is no difference. Can you explain what you mean?

Posted by Armando | November 9, 2007 12:38 PM

I think there's a verb and possibly an adverb missing from this sentence.

I am thinking that the "clearly" should instead be "clearer".

In any case, I find Obama's position incoherent. Obama wants "some strike capability". Striking at what??? The reason we know what to strike at these days is that we have boots on the ground. Take those away, and our "strike capability" is zero, since we would lack the intelligence to know what to strike at. We'd be in a situation in which our strikes would be about as successful as Bill Clinton's strikes at terrorists in Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998 - i.e., not very.

Posted by Al | November 9, 2007 1:02 PM

thanks for the update. Is it your view then that Obama and Edwards do not support:

* Providing logistic support of Iraqi security forces;

• Protecting United States personnel and infrastructure; and

• Participating in targeted counter-terrorism activities.

Have they EXPRESSLY said so? I think it would be a very good question to ask of them.

I predict they will deny that they do not support such operations.

Posted by Armando | November 9, 2007 1:41 PM

Actually, the right position on this is Richardson's. As long as any troops are there, the temptation will be to use them (remember Madeline Albright's statement to Colin Powell during the Clinton Administration).

The fact that Clinton has never admitted that she was wrong to vote for the murder of 3,500 brave American servicemembers, however, does make her demonstrably worse than the others on this issue, because that shows that she still supports US imperialism in the Middle East and is therefore even more likely to get us into more needless wars there.

Posted by Dilan Esper | November 9, 2007 2:34 PM

Hillary Clinton in an interview with the New York Times, March 14, 2007:

"I think we have a vital national security interest — if the Iraqis ever get their act together — to continue to provide logistical support, air support, training support. I don’t know that that is going to be feasible, but I would certainly entertain it."

This seems to be fundamentally the same thing as Obama is saying above.

Posted by Swopa | November 9, 2007 3:32 PM

Of course there's no difference. All three leading candidates anticipate the likelihood of significant US troops in Iraq in 2013, and they certainly aren't going to all be guarding the Green Zone.

It appears entirely plausible at this point that Iraq will evolve over the next several years as a loose federal entity with lots of local autonomy, especially in the area of defensive security. It will be reasonably stable by regional standards, reasonably pro-Western, NOT beavering away on wmd's, at peace with its neighbors, and pumping oil. As an added bonus, it appears likely to be the best possible interlocutor between the US and Iran as we move to normalize relations.

That, my friends, is what victory looks like. See South Korea, which was MUCH more expensive, and probably even more unpopular in 1952, but is now generally seen as having been a fine idea. No serious presidential candidate is going to foreclose this possibility. Grow up.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 9, 2007 4:56 PM

Swopa:

Thanks for finding the NYTimes quote. Clinton has been consistent with those statements on a training role since the beginning of the campaign. In fact, I've heard her in stump speeches add that she sees no evidence that the Iraqis are getting their act together -- a prerequisite to even considering training missions.

I have reached the point of contempt for the Beltway media in continuing to misstate the positions of the candidates because they are too busy in the Georgetown Social Club to even bother watching the candidates appearances on C-SPAN or listen to their interviews.

Come on Atlantic. Put down the martini glasses and pay attention to the issues beyond the one-sentence quotes in the wire service stories. There's no excuse for blatantly misrepresenting the position of the Democratic frontrunnner. She has major speeches on Iraq policy available in both transcript and video form on her Senate and campaign websites.

Posted by hwc | November 9, 2007 5:14 PM

It appears entirely plausible at this point that Iraq will evolve over the next several years as a loose federal entity with lots of local autonomy, especially in the area of defensive security. It will be reasonably stable by regional standards, reasonably pro-Western, NOT beavering away on wmd's, at peace with its neighbors, and pumping oil. As an added bonus, it appears likely to be the best possible interlocutor between the US and Iran as we move to normalize relations.

That, my friends, is what victory looks like.

And how many Americans and Iraqis will continue to die for that achievement, which is at best completely irrelevant to American security and at worst will lead to additional terrorist blowback and recruitment just like our presence in Saudi Arabia did?

Look, the big picture here is it doesn't really matter if Iraq "stabilizes" somewhat or gets "better". What matters are: (1) we really don't have any vital interests there; (2) American servicemembers will continue to be killed as long as we are there; and (3) our presence there will lead to additional terrorism against the US.

Any scenario that doesn't reverse (1), (2), and (3) is not victory.

Posted by Dilan Esper | November 9, 2007 6:18 PM

Another ridiculous Pollyanna post:

"It appears entirely plausible at this point"

To him.

"that Iraq will evolve over the next several years"

Five? Ten? Twenty?

"as a loose federal entity"

Read: partitioned, failed state.

"with lots of local autonomy"

Read: warlords.

"especially in the area of defensive security."

Read: warlord militias.

" It will be reasonably stable by regional standards"

Compared to whom? Syria? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Or more like Afghanistan? Have you looked at Afghanistan lately?

"reasonably pro-Western"

This is truly hallucinatory. Right now, eighty or ninety percent of the Iraqi population hate the US with a passion. It will stay that way for the next forty or fifty years, or longer. Any American found wandering around in the Iraq during that time period is likely to get shot.

"NOT beavering away on wmd's"

They weren't doing that since what, 1991?

"at peace with its neighbors"

Since the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, it has been "at peace with its neighbors", if not friendly with them. Today they're friendly with Iran and that's about it. The Saudis want to see the Shia government overthrown, the Turks want to see the Kurds put back down, and Syria is not happy about the two million refugees.

"and pumping oil."

Until the Sunni-Shia business gets taken care of, and the Kirkuk oil - not to mention the rest of the oil - is rationally divided, no oil is going anywhere unless the Sunnis get their fair share (at LEAST their fair share, to hear them tell it.) Lots of luck on that one...

"As an added bonus, it appears likely to be the best possible interlocutor between the US and Iran as we move to normalize relations."

If you see anybody moving to "normalize relations" with Iran, I'd like to know who that would be. All I've heard from the Democratic front-runners is "Iran is a serious threat", and all I've heard from the Republican front-runners is "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." And Bush and Cheney intend to beat them to it.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 10, 2007 1:35 AM

Advocates of self-administered defeat in Iraq are boringly predictable in their rote repetition of talking points from leftist media sources to the exclusion of anything else. Anyone who thinks we don't have any interests in Iraq is beyond ignorant, and should be reading history rather than posting about it. We were dragged into a war by an aggressive, genocidal totalitarianism sitting on the fulcrum of the world economy. Declaring defeat at the hands of a few thousand nutters is out of the question for anyone remotely likely to be in a decision making capacity. Deal with it.

Mr. Esper--the Ba'athist regime killed about a million people with its aggression against Iran; about a quarter of a million Kurds and a probably greater number of Shi'ite Iraqis in campaigns of repression, 300,000 Kuwaitis, and an indeterminate (but surely quite large) number of generic Iraqis as a function of routine police state operations. We were culpable in the deaths of perhaps a million more of the most vulnerable Iraqis by means of the UN sanctions regime which was described by the UN Assistant Secretary General who resigned in protest rather than continuing to administer it as "meeting the legal definition of genocide". Most of those expressing shock at "the horror" today were nowhere to be found then.

Sanctimonious expressions of concern about the exponentially smaller number of Iraqis killed in the process of liberation are risible. Most of the Iraqis killed in the last four years have been killed by other Iraqis, with us putting our lives on the line to protect them. The moral equation is quite clear.

Posted by Robert Powell | November 10, 2007 3:08 AM

Robert Powell

Could you point me to your earliest characterization of victory in the terms you are now characterizing it please. Was that always your objective in Iraq? Did you never have any interest in democracy in Iraq?

Also, are you aware that your description of your entirely plausible scenario is way more optimistic and ambitious than the objectives driving our current strategy and the smart folks - Team Petraeus, let's call them - implementing and improvising it?

Also, what's the metric for "reasonably stable" and "reasonably pro-WEstern"? Which regimes in the reason fit those descriptions and which do not? Which, in others words, are models for you and which are not? And I assume when you "at peace with its neighbors" you mean there is a lasting peace, not just that Iraq is not making war on its neigbors at the moment, right? The "beavering away a WMD" we can dismiss out of hand since, of course, Iraq was not beavering away at WMD in 2003. Unless you are so deluded as to still, after all this time, believe otherwise?

Posted by Jeff | November 10, 2007 8:39 AM

Like I said, hallucinatory troll.

"Sanctimonious expressions of concern about the exponentially smaller number of Iraqis killed in the process of liberation are risible. Most of the Iraqis killed in the last four years have been killed by other Iraqis, with us putting our lives on the line to protect them. The moral equation is quite clear."

First of all, the Iraqi war with Iran was supported by the US.

Second, the US has been responsible by its war for at least one million Iraqis killed, at least thirty percent of those by US forces directly via bombing and random war crimes. And he admits the sanctions - pushed by the US - killed a million more, to no useful end.

And the notion that we were "dragged into a war" is such complete, delusional nonsense as to be beyond discussion.

It's amazing that nitwits like this still exist in the USA outside of a mental institution. It's even more amazing that probably thirty percent of the US population share this level of ignorance and delusion.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 10, 2007 12:07 PM