We seem to come full circle again. Senator Obama still doesn’t quite understand — or doesn’t get it — that if we fail in Iraq, it encourages Al Qaida. They would establish a base in Iraq.
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That is the central issue of our time. And I think Americans will judge very seriously as to whether that’s the right path or the wrong path and who should be the next president of the United States.
Reading the post-debate analysis, I have been amazed that this closing point by McCain has not been more analyzed. As Obama correctly pointed out this narrow view through the prism of Iraq denies the amazing other set of crises that we face. In addition this more than any other issue represents how McCain is simply more of the same. This was a foreign policy debate and if McCain’s Foreign Policy remains that Iraq is the "Central Front of the War on Terror", than everything else that he says is meaningless.
Obama needs to emphasize the strategic element over the voting element. The point that McCain has voted with 90% of the time does not seem tangible. Like Bush, McCain would like us to continue to believe that Iraq is where the war on terror starts and ends. Even from a military stand point this continue to leaves out what we need to do in Afghanistan. But beyond that, Obama’s response is right on:
Look, over the last eight years, this administration, along with Senator McCain, have been solely focused on Iraq. That has been their priority. That has been where all our resources have gone. In the meantime, bin Laden is still out there. He is not captured. He is not killed. Al Qaida is resurgent.
In the meantime, we’ve got challenges, for example, with China, where we are borrowing billions of dollars. They now hold a trillion dollars’ worth of our debt. And they are active in countries like — in regions like Latin America, and Asia, and Africa. They are — the conspicuousness of their presence is only matched by our absence, because we’ve been focused on Iraq.
We have weakened our capacity to project power around the world because we have viewed everything through this single lens, not to mention, look at our economy. We are now spending $10 billion or more every month.
This 30 second exchange should be made into an ad, because it sums up perfectly the difference in worldviews on Obama and McCain. This is the central argument that Americans no longer believe. When McCain, just like Bush, continues to be focused on Iraq, no other foreign and domestic policy gets the attention it should.
It is clear that this is what Senator McCain doesn’t quite understand.