The Geek is normally not of a mind to watch candidates' debates. They tend to be pre-scripted posture sessions of little substance. He made an exception this time. Guess there was some eagerness to see if either man had a good grip on the upcoming foreign policy presidency. Or would both guys be so wrapped up in the current financial sector "emergency" that foreign affairs would be covered with brief campaign boiler plate.
There was substance. Interestingly, both men were equally right and wrong on the challenges of Iran and trans-national terrorism. Of course each man was right in a different way The same is true with how each was wrong.
Spell it out, Geek. You're losing me.
OK, bunky, here's the way the Geek saw it.
Obama got it right when he said that Afghanistan and Pakistan constituted the "central front" of the anti-terrorism war.
McCain was wrong as a cat barking when he dissented, averring that Iraq deserved pride of place.
Obama saw the Iraq invasion as a dangerous and counterproductive diversion of US resources and political will. (The Geek's summary of what he believes Obama was trying to articulate.)
McCain is gripless when he avers, as he did last night, that the Iraq invasion constituted the critical component of the "war on terror." He was as out to lunch as the neocon ninnies of the Bush Administration when he said five and more years ago that the war in Iraq would be short, sweet and low cost.
Obama was wrong on the "surge" in Iraq and McCain was right. That is irrelevant. What is relevant is that there would have been no need for a "surge" if we hadn't invaded Iraq.
Neither man squarely acknowledged that the US and its allies were on the verge of losing the war with Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. If anything the military situation in Afghanistan today is worse from our perspective than the way the war in Iraq was going just before the "surge " commenced.
There are several reasons for this unpleasant reality, none of which were even indirectly referenced by McCain or Obama. The first was the dilatory way in which the US and its allies initially prosecuted operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda. The second was the failure to properly consider the actual relationship between elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence services with Taliban and al-Qaeda. The third was the failure to take proper account of the ethno-linguistic and religious nature of the human terrain straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
In the what-we-should-do-next department, Obama was dead perfect wrong. The initiation of more "clandestine" cross-border operations by the US would be utterly counterproductive. The time for that option expired months--if not years--ago.
Unilateral actions now would both further alienate and destabilize the Government of Pakistan (GOP)to say nothing of strengthen the hand of the indigenous Pakistani Islamists. It would also undercut the position of the various tribal khans within the FATA whose lives and hold on power are increasingly threatened by the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
As these khans increasingly recognise the danger they and their tribes are in they will be more willing to mobilize the tribal forces and take the war to the Islamists. These khans and the trigger-pullers they can muster are the FATA-land equivalent of the Concerned Local Citizens and Awakening Councils of Anbar and other provinces in Iraq. Unilateral US action whether by ground or air will erode--perhaps fatally--this indigenous option.
While it would be emotionally satisfying for US commandos to winkle Osama bin Ladin out of his presumed FATA-land cave, it is a highly unlikely eventuality. To make the attempt (presumably repeatedly until success was obtained) as Senator Obama stated would be to undertake a fools mission, a forlorn hope.
On the Pakistan issue, Senator McCain got it right. We must work with the Pakistanis, frustrating and irritating as that may be. The Geek agrees that we wasted the ten or so gigabucks funneled to Pakistan over the past seven years as a result of the Bush Administration's constitutional unwillingness to accept that the money would be diverted from its intended counterinsurgency and counterterror usages to big ticket items directed at India.
But conditions in Pakistan have changed in recent months. This includes the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. The civilian government of Pakistan must have seen it as a wake up call of unmistakable nature. Not only are their (to quote a line from Blazing Saddles) "phony-baloney jobs" in danger, so also were their lives.
While the GOP is undoubtedly overstating the body count resulting from the recent military operations in FATA , there is no denying that the war is being carried to the border sanctuaries at long last. American cooperation, understanding and discretion can not but assist this long overdue process.
On Iran there is no doubt that Senator McCain had it all over Senator Obama in the who-has-a-firmer-grip department. The Geek can write this even though admitting that it rankled him when McCain overly emphasized the Iranian "existential" threat to Israel. The Geek had a great desire to scream at the screen, "You're running for POTUS not Prime Minister of Israel.
The position of Senator Obama (oft restated) of negotiations without preconditions is, as Senator McCain made clear, "naive" and "dangerous." However, Senator McCain's position is not without dangers as well.
Unless Senator McCain can put a lot of blue sky between his view of US-Russian relations and the isolate-the-bastards position espoused by Dick Cheney and other neocons, there is no hope of making the current (or projected) sanctions effective.
Even far more biting sanctions will, in the Geek's estimate, prove unlikely to modify Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. Tehran has invested too much of its political capital as well as Iran's resources in the project.
The world (including Israel) may well have to learn to live with a nuclear weapons equipped Iran. Here again close collaborative efforts between the US and Russia are essential. If Iran's mullahs were to be presented by both the US and Russia extending its nuclear umbrella over the Mideast and Persian Gulf states, the probability of deterrence being effective would be increased by orders of magnitude.
Unfortunately Senator McCain gave no evidence last night of seeking to distance himself from those in the Bush Administration. He made no mention of how he would seek collaboration with the Kremlin. That was a major malfunction by the Senator.
The Geek was surprised that neither candidate (nor the moderator for that matter) mentioned the other nuclear elephant in the room. North Korea.
The Hermit Kingdom of the North is a far more clear and present danger to US national and strategic interests than is Iran. The regime there is even more resistant to sanctions and other niceties of diplomacy than is the mullahocracy in Tehran. The North Koreans have shown that they have mastered the implosion bomb. They have thirty of more kilos of Pu239 on hand with more en route from the spent fuel rods extracted earlier from their Yongbyon reactor.
The North Korean reality is an elephant that can be ignored only at great risk. The Senators should have at least genuflected before that fact.
The night showed that We the People have a hair raising choice. Ignorance and inexperience. Or knowledge, experience and a neocon predilection.
Lord help us.
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