7/19/2008:Commentary: Review of Obama's Speech On Tuesday: The Iraq
War!

On Tuesday, Barack Obama gave an address on the Iraq War. It was a
bizarre speech, as if it had been written two years ago, when it would
have made more sense. Liberals ought to hate the speech. It will make
their side vulnerable to the common conservative charge that they
ignore crucial facts in favor of manufacturing their own reality.

The crucial facts in this case, absent two years ago, and which have
been emphasized repeatedly in recent months by bibles of the left,
from the New York Times to the Washington Post, is that the
reconstruction effort in Iraq has improved tremendously under General
Petraeus, to the point where we are not only winning in Iraq but, some
say, we may have already won. Obama’s speech is a troubling example of
ignoring everything that has happened for the better over the last 18
months, suggestive instead of a defeated nation that needs to
immediately hop on the last helicopter out of Saigon.

Obama probably thinks this speech will win him points among the angry
extremists that fortify his base, which it will, but it will hurt him
among responsible, fair-minded liberals and especially among the
moderates that will decide this election. It is a giant softball for
John McCain and for the GOP to turn into ad spots. It plays right into
John McCain’s chief strength and against Obama’s chief liability:
their divergent experience in foreign and security policy. It was a
bad political move for a candidate who is ahead in the polls.

There was so much in this speech that merits a response, but I would
like to draw attention to its most fatal flaw, which apparently stills
persists among the far left, which is actually where Barack Obama,
ranked the most liberal member of the Senate by the non-partisan
National Journal, sits on the ideological spectrum. In this speech,
Obama argued that the true battle against terror has always been, and
remains, in Afghanistan, not Iraq. He framed the Iraq intervention as
a total distraction from the real War on Terror, which resides in
Afghanistan.

Yet again, this positively maddening assertion is being made by a
leader of the American left. It is absolutely, unequivocally, a post-
Iraq War invention. I plead with my liberal friends: If you don’t
believe me, then remember what the Clinton administration stated
repeatedly:

Throughout the latter 1990s, President Clinton’s State Department,
headed by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, listed Iraq among the
leading sponsors of terrorism. It did so officially in its "Patterns
of Global Terrorism" report, which is the formal, annual assessment on
global terrorism mandated by Congress beginning in 1979 with the
passing of the Export Administration Act. The final such report by the
Clinton administration, in 2000, highlighted the seven leading
terrorist governments: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea,
and Sudan. Afghanistan was not even on the list. These were the same
seven nations identified in previous years, with Iraq and Iran singled
out as the worst offenders. In fact, the 2000 report devoted more
words, and terrorist crimes, to Iraq than any other nation.

From providing safe-haven to Abu Nidal to attacking U.N. personnel, I
will not review the details of the 2000 report here. Anyone interested
can click the links. But I warn liberals: you will not like what you
see, because it will force you to reevaluate some sacred cows produced
for convenience in the era of hating George W. Bush, including those
that reared their heads in Obama’s speech on Tuesday.

The fact is that the fight against global Islamic terror is exactly
that, global. It must occur on many fronts. To judge that the fight
was never in Iraq but always in Afghanistan is amazingly simplistic
and obviously inaccurate, and would never be made by supposedly
sophisticated people if not for their seething hatred of George W.
Bush. That hatred forces them into back-flips and contradictions in
the ugly, purely emotional process of opposing everything he does.
Bush’s identification of Iraq as a prime terror threat, pursued only
after the removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, is 100 percent
consistent with what the Clinton administration stated throughout its
eight years.

Surely, liberals know this. If they do not, and if Barack Obama, their
standard-bearer, does not, then this speaks very poorly, and quite
frighteningly, of their ability to run American foreign policy over
the next four years. The explanation for their thinking is either
ignorance or a blinding hatred of George W. Bush that obliterates
their ability to assess reality and the world.

Whatever the answer, Obama’s speech on Tuesday was not a good moment
for anyone who hopes this man can lead America in this historic battle
facing the world.