Say Anything

Like most politicians, Barack was willing to say anything to win the presidency. Dig any hole now, we can climb out of it later.

A suicide car bomber struck a U.S. military convoy passing through a crowded market in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing at least five civilians and a coalition soldier and wounding an additional 57 civilians, officials said.

In order to be a peace candidate while not being perceived as weak on defense, Barack embraced the war in Afghanistan - that's the war we need to fight, that's the war we need to win, he said - Iraq was the wrong war.

The bomber rammed his vehicle into the convoy as it traveled through Bati Kot district of Nangarhar province, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

At least five civilians were killed in the blast, said Ghafoor Khan, the spokesman for the provincial police chief. Fifty-seven civilians were wounded, said Ajmal Pardes, a provincial health official.

Now, Barack has challenges other than looming economic disaster - how to responsibly (ie gradually) withdraw from Iraq after having built expectations that he'll draw down willy-nilly, and how to win the war in Afghanistan using troops who really need rest, not redeployment.

Lt. Cmdr. Walter Matthews, a U.S. military spokesman, said a member of the U.S-led coalition died of his injuries received in the attack. He would not disclose the nationality of the victim, but another U.S. spokesman earlier said that the wounded soldier was an American.

If confirmed, that death would bring the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year to at least 148, the highest annual tally of troop deaths since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. There were 111 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan in all of 2007.

Barack took ownership of Afghanistan in order to change the long held perception that Democrats can't be trusted to defend the nation. It's his war now, and he's got to win it.

The bomber struck the convoy near a crowded market, where people were trading sheep, cows, goats and other animals, Mr. Khan said. An Associated Press photographer said that an American military vehicle, two civilian vehicles and two rickshaws were destroyed.

Taliban militants regularly use suicide attackers and car bombs in their assaults against U.S., Afghan and other foreign troops in the country. But a majority of the victims in such attacks have been civilians. On Wednesday, a truck bomb in southern Afghanistan killed six people and wounded 42.

And Isn't It Ironic?

Is it by design, or just dumb luck, that Barack seems to have things going his way on the war in Iraq? Walter Russell Mead writes in the LA Times about a situation loaded with ironies.

The net result, ironically, is that the antiwar candidate who predicted failure is benefiting most from the war's success.

It's such an incredible accomplishment that it's hard to imagine orchestrating such a thing.

Thanks to the surge he opposed, the policy Obama championed -- a relatively swift and steady withdrawal of U.S. combat forces over 16 months, conditions permitting -- no longer looks dangerous, irresponsible or an invitation to defeat.

The clever part of Barack's strategy is providing himself cover for being an Iraq peace-nik by acting like a hawk on Afghanistan. The wacko wing of the Democratic party is happy because he's anti-war on Iraq, and while being a hawk on Afghanistan, he gets to repeat the party line that that's where we should have been focused all along. Brilliant!

But, ironically, Obama is using his new maneuvering room to toughen his stand rather than soften it. In Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan, he wants to send in more troops, take a harder line with Islamabad and crush the elusive Taliban beneath his heel.

I've always felt that being lucky is a talent, and it's one that Barack seems to have in spades.

Obama's pilgrimage abroad points to a larger truth: In the midst of a bitter political year, a loose bipartisan consensus on the Mideast may be emerging. And, irony of ironies, the consensus, seemingly embraced by Obama, seems closer to Bush's views than to those of the antiwar activists who propelled the Illinois senator to the nomination.

McCain Outfoxed on War?

Did Barack kidnap the upper hand on Iraq from McCain this week? By shifting the focus to Afghanistan, and talking about escalating the war there while satisfying his base by talking about withdrawing from Iraq, Barack may have pulled off an incredible bait and switch, becoming the anti-war candidate who wants war!

Obama officials also say the push from Iraqi politicians for troop withdrawal schedules roughly in line with his (with the exception of Sunni chieftains who still fret about a rapid US exit). The language of “aspiration time horizons” agreed upon by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and the Bush White House also gave Obama a glide-path in Iraq on the question of troop movements and nothing on they trip, they believe undercut that opening advantage.

The foundation of Barack's trick, is, or course, the success of the surge, which Barack opposed. But McCain even found a way to muddle that point.

On July 23, McCain said the surge wasn’t really about more troops, but counter-insurgency tactics. And yet the political credit McCain seeks for the turn-around in Iraq is based principally on his advocacy if the surge - meaning more troops to carry out counter-insurgency missions. To say the surge wasn’t really about more troops undercuts much of McCain has tried to tell the public about what has changed in Iraq and why.

This is true, of course. What is known as the surge is a collection of tactical changes that have led to a dramatic success - but some argue that the least important of these was adding more troops to the mix. But why would McCain seek to cloud the issue he's worked so hard to highlight, making it possible for the left to argue this:

If you define “the surge” as broadly as he does here, you can no longer claim that Barack Obama opposed it. Obama, of course, has never been opposed to the use of more effective counter-insurgency tactics in Iraq. Indeed, from the moment Obama arrived in the Senate in 2004, he criticized the Bush administration for failing to appreciate that it was dealing with an insurgency and adopting appropriate counter-insurgency techniques. For example, in this 2005 speech Obama argued that we need to “focus our efforts on a more effective counter-insurgency strategy and take steam out of the insurgency.”

Hiding in Afghanistan

He'd never been before, so it made sense for Barack to start his international campaign swing in Afghanistan.

KABUL - US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama arrived in Afghanistan Saturday at the start of a major international tour that will also include Iraq, his office and the Afghan foreign ministry said.

Obama's office said the senator would visit some of the 36,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan as part of an international effort to defeat a growing extremist insurgency.

"He will meet President (Hamid) Karzai and they will discuss issues of mutual interest," added foreign ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen, confirming Obama's arrival to AFP.

Barack is playing a game of "Good War, Bad War."

If he wins the November elections, Obama plans to commit at least two more combat brigades, up to 10,000 men, to Afghanistan, which is enduring a resurgence in fighting by the Islamic Taliban militia.

If he can find a war to support, he escapes accusations of being another Democrat who gets queasy around the idea of using the military to defend the nation. He's taking cover in Afghanistan.

"Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."

Ah, that old mantra of the anti-war left. There's a logic problem here - this line of thinking ignores the fact of what the war in Iraq represents now, regardless of what it was when we went in.

Ironically, if you are a sincerely anti-war type and you're paying attention, Barack sounds more dangerous than McCain.

"Al-Qaeda has an expanding base in Pakistan that is probably no farther from their old Afghan sanctuary than a train ride from Washington to Philadelphia," Obama said.

"We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president I won't."

Few will spend much time examining such realities. Barack will successfully inoculate himself with this tactic.