McCain's and Obama's Foreign Policy Experience

There seems to be a propensity for equating resume and age with experience and wisdom. This line of thinking gives rise to questions about Obama's readiness and qualifications to be POTUS. McCain by contrast, claims great experience (and age) to support his readiness and qualifications. However, if this logic were legitimate, Cheney and Rumsfeld would be doing a great job. Instead, Rumsfeld has resigned over bungled Iraq policy and Cheney, with approval ratings heading south, may yet be impeached.

For insight into the wisdom and foresight of McCain and Obama, let's review their stated projections regarding invading Iraq back in 2002.

In a September 29th, 2002 interview on CNN Sen. McCain said:

"I don't claim that any military operation anywhere is going to be easy. In fact, I think, whenever you commit American blood and treasure, it's a great risk and is a last resort and last option.

But I don't know of any Iraqi soldier who is willing to die for Saddam Hussein. We're not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we're not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies."

October 2, 2002, the same day that President Bush and Congress announced the joint resolution authorizing force against Iraq, then Illinois State Senator Obama, giving a speech at an anti-war rally in Chicago said:

Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

Obama wisely recognized the consequences of the worst foreign policy blunder of any recent U.S. President. He was able to look strategically at the big picture of U.S. involvement and foresee the devastating cost- political, financial and human, of occupying Iraq. McCain, then as now, illustrated by his bloviating talk of victory in Iraq and the success of the surge, does not seem capable of looking past the tactical challenges faced by the military.