It's been the conventional wisdom among the beltway types and the media that the Republicans "own" the foreign policy issue. George W Bush and John McCain have based their campaigns on their supposed strong foreign policy credentials. But in 3 days this week, Obama has turned the issue of foreign policy into a weakness for McCain and strength for him. He has shifted the debate from Iraq to Afghanistan and in the process, has caused McCain to reveal his complete lack of understanding of what's really going on in the Middle East.
The positive reviews of Obama's Middle East tour have been coming fast and furious, but I'd like to highlight this article from The Washington Post that puts it in perspective. The title of the article is "Obama Shifts the Foreign Policy Debate".
Sen. Barack Obama, on his first and likely only overseas trip as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has remade the campaign's foreign policy playing field, neatly sidestepping Republican charges that he has been naive and wrong on Iraq and moving to a broader, post-Iraq focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The McCain campaign sees this happening and is now in desperation mode. They've seen the entire premise of their campaign fall apart in 3 days. They have nothing left to run on now. And the support for Obama's reading of the situation from Iraqi leaders must be a particularly hard pill to swallow:
Obama's analysis has been buttressed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders who, to the dismay of the White House and Sen. John McCain, his Republican opponent, have publicly agreed with his call for completing a U.S. combat withdrawal from Iraq in 2010.
Not to mention the fact that the Joint Chief of Staff commander Admiral Mike Mullen agrees with Obama's Afghanistan assessment and McCain doesn't seem to know where Afghanistan is.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, in an interview last night with PBS's "NewsHour," said he shares Obama's assessment that the situation in Afghanistan is "precarious and urgent." The 10,000 additional troops needed there, he said, would not be available "in any significant manner" unless there are withdrawals from Iraq.
And the New York Daily News has this headline. "Obama hits grand slam in Mideast tour; 'he's won the week' vs. McCain"
WASHINGTON - John McCain may rue the day he ever taunted Barack Obama into going to Iraq.
Obama's four-day visit to the combat zones was a political tour de force, generating mega-coverage back home that left McCain gasping for traction.
It then goes on to basically call McCain a crybaby:
As Obama met with Iraqi and Afghan leaders and did the obligatory helicopter tour with Gen. David Petraeus, McCain was reduced to complaining that Obama flunked the leadership test for opposing President Bush's troop surge.
This is definitely Obama's "Best Week Ever". He's got McCain playing defense, and not very well I might add. And this week may forever change the way we address the question of "Who's better on foreign policy?". It will interesting to see what the polls look like in the next couple of weeks if they ask this question after Obama returns to the US. I bet we'll see a significant change in those numbers.