Let's Keep Waffles on the Breakfast Table

E. J. Dionne Jr. is now apparently playing the constructive criticizer role favored by former Speaker Newt Gingrich. [WaPo] For those of you who didn't make it all the way through the A section this morning, I've done the reading for you. If you pass the test, I'll take my payment in the form of cigarettes, alcohol, or this wicker chaise lounge.

Anyway, Dionne actually makes an excellent point. Barack Obama needs to work on his flexibility, especially when it comes to foreign policy. Having one position ("I intend to end this war.") will not allow Senator Obama the range of motion he needs to successfully and decisively blow Senator McCain's campaign out of the water.

Right now, the Bush White House is banking on the Iraqi Parliamentary elections, slated for October 2008, being successful; a label that requires enthusiastic voter turnout, strong international support and reinforcement, and no post-election surges in violence.

But here's the lynchpin: if the Iraqi elections are successful, Obama will need a message that is in line with his current thinking, but can still make the argument that the war was a tragic and misguided undertaking. All while Senator McCain is standing on the other side, stating, correctly, that the surge worked, that Iraq is more stable than it has been in the last five years, and that all of this is proved by the fact that Iraqi citizens just peacibly elected a new parliament.

Senator Obama has run an incredibly intelligent and effective campaign, and he undoubtely knows that using the death toll since 2003 is not an effective tactic when it comes to building a stong foreign policy platform. Instead, Senator Obama must draw a distinction between himself and Senator McCain that does not leave him open to the charge of defeatism. After all, Iraq has begun to stabilize, and Obama's original sixteen-month timeline for withdraw, as he must realize now, leaves the door wide open to resurgences in violence at the hands of a Sunni insurgency, Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, and Al Qaeda; all of which, although currently diminished and flailing, have great potential to revive if the United States were to redeploy all troops within sixteen months, not having taken into account the ability of the Iraqi government to pick up the slack.

Long story short, Senator Obama needs to take a page from Senator McCain's book and begin shaping a foreign policy platform that is based on viable foreign policy instead of fondant and marshmallow.

For more, read George Packer's essay in this week's New Yorker: Obama's Iraq Problem