McCain, Barack, Iraq and Foreign Policy Experience

Today comes news that Barack Obama is considering a trip to Iraq after turning down an invitation from McCain to do a joint visit. John McCain believes we should stay in Iraq while Obama believes it is time to pull the troops out. He has committed to doing just this within 16-months of taking office. On that topic John McCain is quoted this week as saying:

"Obama was driven to his position by ideology and not by the facts on the ground. And he does not have the knowledge or the experience to make the judgments. Presidents have to listen and learn. Presidents have to make judgments no matter how popular or unpopular they may be."

John McCain claims he has visited Iraq several times and thus "knows what is happening on the ground". If that is the case, then why was it he had such a skewed view of the security situation in this interview last year when he suggested some neighborhoods were safe enough for Americans to walk around without maximum security?

In the interview McCain scolded Wolf Blitzer to "catch up" and for "giving the old line". Following this interview John McCain was shown to be wrong on this fact (see second video below) and insisted he didn't say what he had said. So, either McCain was not telling the truth or HE doesn't know what is happening on the ground in Iraq.





There have been other McCain Iraq and foreign policy mistakes. See below for a few examples. In the mean time, what does Barack Obama have to say about his plan for Iraq? In short, he believes we need to give the military a new mission of removing our troops, in a safe way, in 16-months. He is willing to listen to the military experts on how to do this, but he believes the president, as commander in chief, sets the mission and the military is to execute.

The commander in chief sets the mission. That's not the role of the
generals. The president's approach lately has been to say, well, I'm just taking
cues from General Petraeus. Well, the president sets the mission. The general
and our troops carry out that mission. And unfortunately we have had a bad
mission. Once I've given them a new mission, that we are going to proceed
deliberately in an orderly fashion out of Iraq, if they come to me and want to
adjust tactics, then I will certainly take their recommendations into
consideration. And I have to look at not just the situation in Iraq, but the
fact that we continue to see al Qaeda getting stronger in Afghanistan and in
Pakistan, we continue to see anti-American sentiment fanned all cross the Middle
East, and we are overstretched in a way that we do not have a strategic reserve
at this point.

For a video of this response, visit this link and forward ahead to about 5:30.

John McCain Examples:

Mistaking Sunni and Shia:


Not knowing where the power lies in Iran:



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