Dead Wrong
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Posted: 08/27/08
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Dead Wrong
By Thomas E. Brewton
Relying on Senator Biden's foreign policy judgment is risky. Both he
and Senator Obama backed the wrong horses in Iraq.
When it was unpopular, Senator McCain stood up for victory in Iraq
and pushed for what later became known as the successful Surge.
Senator Obama, of course, put his finger to the wind and followed
public opinion down the path of least resistance. He famously
campaigned on a pledge to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq
immediately. He has since failed to acknowledge the effectiveness of
the Surge, a denial that demeans the superior performance and valor
of our troops.
He was joined in the demand for immediate withdrawal by defeatist
Democrat/Socialists including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,
Senator Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Congressman
John Murtha, who declared Iraq a quagmire of defeat.
The consequences of an immediate troop withdrawal would have been
loss of credibility for the United States, emboldenment of Al Queda
to strike us with terror attacks anywhere in the world, and an Iraq
in feeble disarray, giving Iran the opportunity unopposed to move
into the vacuum and make Iraq a client state.
With his support of immediate withdrawal of troops proven wrong, and
implicitly admitting that he is a foreign policy novice, Senator
Obama has endeavored to endeavored to fill the yawning void by
selecting as his running mate Senator Joseph Biden, long a member of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
What measure of solid foreign policy judgment does Senator Biden
bring to the table? With respect to Iraq and the struggle against
Islamic jihad, what was the product of Senator Biden's putative
foreign policy expertise?
In a May 1, 2006, op-ed article in the New York Times, Senator Biden
and his foreign policy advisor Leslie H. Gelb wrote:
"It is increasingly clear that President Bush does not have a
strategy for victory in Iraq. Rather, he hopes to prevent defeat and
pass the problem along to his successor.
"...The idea, as in Bosnia, is to maintain a united Iraq by
decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group - Kurd, Sunni
Arab and Shiite Arab - room to run its own affairs, while leaving the
central government in charge of common interests...
"Fourth, the president must direct the military to design a plan for
withdrawing and redeploying our troops from Iraq by 2008..."
Bear in mind that the Democrat/Socialists have, since Senator John
Kerry's 2004 campaign for the presidency, advocated a more sensitive
foreign policy. In general they have viewed foreign policy as an
international popularity contest, in which the sole objective is to
have all nations like us and never to do anything without the
permission of the UN, a policy which effectively precludes
definitive military action to protect our national interests.
In that vein, Senator Obama campaigned on the promise to meet with
any foreign leader, friend or foe, for discussions without
preconditions. Such an essay has only one pillar to lean upon:
Senator Obama's presumed superhuman ability to calm foreign
aggression with honeyed words from his lips.
How well then does Senator Biden's Iraq dismemberment plan measure
up? How effective a foreign policy advisor will he be as Vice
President?
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