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The war has not gone away
Americans may not like to think about the war, but, come November, circumstances are not going to let us forget it.
- By Gordon Robison, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:20 February 13, 2008
- Image Credit: Illustration: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
Over the past two or three months anyone paying attention to the American presidential campaign could be forgiven for concluding that the war in Iraq has ceased to be an issue.
The Democrats rarely mention it. Their debates and speeches are mainly about healthcare and the economy. Republicans prefer to argue with one another about immigration policy and the oddly backwards-looking question of which of their candidates is the most like Ronald Reagan.
Viewed from the Middle East this may seem odd, but it fits the tenor of our times here in the US. On the surface, Iraq no longer seems to the burning issue it was six months, or a year, ago. It commands less and less attention on television and in the newspapers.
An broad range of opinion, across the political spectrum, has bought into the Bush administration's claims that the surge is working and that places like Anbar province are largely pacified.
A knowledgeable observer might note that, according to the criteria the administration itself laid out, the surge has broadly been a failure: its well-executed military component failing to find a match in the political progress military success was supposed to enable.
To be fair, a few observers have noted that America's new "allies" in places such as Anbar are the very people the US was fighting a few months ago.
Moreover, most of the newly-armed tribal leaders are admirably upfront about their desire to use the weapons the Americans are giving them to fight the Shiite-led government once the opportunity arises.
Put another way, the information about what is happening in Iraq is out there if one cares to dig around for it, but few people do. Counting on the candidates and media for one's information yields a far simpler, if misleading, picture: the surge is working, things are better, if, admittedly, far from 'good'. America is "winning".
General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are scheduled to deliver another progress report to Congress next month. But where their September appearances were much anticipated the coming ones have caused hardly a stir.
Deeply divisive
Do not be fooled by all of this. Recent events may have obscured how deeply divisive an issue the war remains in American society, but they have not made it go away. Not by a long shot.
Iraq may be off the American agenda for the moment, but you can count on the presidential campaign bringing it back to center stage. The emerging results from the party primaries virtually guarantee it.
Iraq will be a central, and perhaps a decisive, element in the fall's general election campaign. The war will not go away because it is a life-and-death issue on which America's two main parties find no common ground.
A clear reminder of this came when former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney exited the Republican nominating race last week. In the most often-quoted section of his withdrawal speech Romney told supporters that staying in the race would "forestall the launch of a national campaign" by all-but-certain Republican nominee John McCain.
"And, frankly," he added, "I'd be making it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win. Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."
Combine this "a-vote-for-the-Democrats-is-a-vote-for terror" argument with McCain's recent remark that keeping US troops in Iraq for the next century would not necessarily trouble him and the battle lines could hardly be more clearly drawn.
This is because, on Democratic side Senator Obama has made opposition to the war a staple of his candidacy, one that is pointed at the Republicans and at Hillary Clinton in equal measure.
Clinton began her campaign with a studied wishy-washiness on the war, but that has been abandoned in recent months. If George W. Bush won't bring troops home from Iraq, she tells cheering crowds, "I will".
All of this highlights the starkly different world Republicans and Democrats see when they look toward Iraq. While the election was an internal Democratic and Republican matter these differences were of only passing importance.
As the party nominees move to take on each other they will inevitably spring into focus, coming back to the forefront of American political debate.
Americans may not like to think about the war, but, come November, circumstances are not going to let us forget it. The choice will be stark and that, perhaps, is a good thing. Because if there is anything the country needs where Iraq is concerned it is a clear direction, for better or worse.
Gordon Robison is a journalist and consultant based in the US. He has lived in and reported on the Middle East for two decades, including assignments in Baghdad for both CNN and Fox News.
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