Obama in Iraq: Summer Blockbuster

The Star is ready, the script written and the supporting cast assembled from the media A-list as the political extravaganza of the summer goes into production. With so much invested on the part of all concerned, can there be any surprises?

The plot of "Obama in Iraq" is foreordained: Scenes of breathless anticipation as the protagonist--young, idealistic but wise beyond his years--undertakes the critical journey, modestly protesting he is there to listen and learn not negotiate ("One president at a time," he says).

Intercut with scenes of Republican scoffers and doubters to heighten the tension. "If Barack Obama believes that visiting Iraq and meeting with commanders will not give him any new perspective," John McCain's spokesman says, "then we can only assume he's going just to smile for the cameras."

Then a montage of waiting Iraqis buzzing with ambivalent excitement: “Every time I see Obama I say: ‘He’s close to us. Maybe he’ll see us in a different way,'" says a government official. “I find Obama very close to my heart.”

But another expresses dread: “It’s a very big assumption that just because he wants to pull troops out, he’ll be able to do it. The American strategy in the region requires troops to remain in Iraq for a long time.”

From then on, the story line is clear. The president-to-be bonds with the troops, charms the commanders and promises to honor their valor while elevating their mission to a higher plane.

"As president," he promises, "I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq."

Finally, smiling scenes with Prime Minister al-Maliki, mingling reassurance with promised firmness about the future: “Iraq is not going to be a perfect place, and we don’t have the resources to try to make it one. True success will take place when we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future.”

Then, boarding the plane with smiles and waves, the President-to-Be leaves the mise en scene as the music swells, the credits roll and the audience tries to figure out if what they've seen will have any effect on reality whatsoever.

McCain's Hundred Year War

He is not talking about Iraq on the campaign trail, but John McCain has a good deal to say in today's Wall Street Journal on the first anniversary of the Surge.

So much, in fact, that he needs his Senate colleague, Joe Lieberman, to help him do the heavy lifting in proclaiming, "The Surge Worked," that "conditions in that country have been utterly transformed...al Qaeda has been beaten back, violence across the country has dropped dramatically. The number of car bombings, sectarian murders and suicide attacks has been slashed."

Yesterday, the US military announced, six American soldiers were killed when a house rigged with explosives blew up north of Baghdad during a new offensive targeting al Qaeda guerrillas, adding to the more than 835 who have died since last February.

The gains in Iraq, McCain tells us, "are thrilling but not yet permanent. Political progress has been slow. And although al Qaeda and the other extremists in Iraq have been dealt a critical blow, they will strike back at the Iraqi people and us if we give them the chance, as our generals on the ground continue to warn us."

If we wait until President McCain takes office next January, perhaps he will tell us then how many troops we will have to keep there for how long (perhaps less than the 100 years he recently mentioned). Maybe he will reveal his plans to speed up the "slow" political progress in a small country that keeps draining the lives of our most patriotic young people and billions of dollars that could be saving and improving lives back here.

In his Wall Street Journal victory lap, McCain concedes that "mismanagement of the Iraq war from 2003 to 2006 exposed our government's capacity for incompetence." Voters are going to want to know how, sharing Bush's blindness about our interests in the Middle East, McCain is going to do better.

Certainly not by making Joe Lieberman his Secretary of State.