I’m very happy about Barack Obama’s win in the Democratic primary. A win for Obama would do a lot to change the perception of the US in the world, and the reality, greatly for the better. Of course, given that we are now into the eighth year of the worst presidency in US history, Hillary Clinton (or any other Democrat) would also have offered a huge change for the better, but Obama offers, in addition, a clear break with the past. The converse is that, if Obama loses, the consequences for US standing in the world will be dire. McCain has a largely unjustified reputation in the US as a moderate and a maverick, but the world as a whole would rightly see an election victory for him as a continuation of Bush.
My record tipping elections is not great, though I called the 2007 election for Labor ahead of most pundits. It remains to be seen whether I’ll get even a passing grade on my prediction, in January, of a relatively narrow win for an Obama-Clinton ticket over McCain-Lieberman for the Republicans. I’ve got the nominees right, and Hillary for VP seems like a no-brainer. On the other hand, while choosing an ex-Democrat Independent as a running mate still seems to me to give McCain his best chance of winning, he doesn’t even make most of the lists I’ve seen, though this guy shares my view.
Assuming Obama-Clinton go up against a ticket of McCain-genericRepublican, I expect and hope for a Democratic victory in November. But in politics you can never be sure.
John Quiggin 
All this talk about Obama and Iraq is based on one unspoken and foolish assumption: that Obama will live long enough to order a withdrawal from Iraq.
A pretty handy dilemma to present to any fundy thinking of getting closely involved in the election then, wouldn’t you say Alan? Perhaps that’s why McCain offered to do the rounds with Obama together?
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that all these people predicting that Obama will get assassinated, are really very creepy?
Perhaps they know Bill and Hillary better than us Spiros?
<blockquote<A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.
Naturally. The US did not attack and occupy Iraq on a whim. It will not be leaving.
Observa and Joseph Clark
I take it you both weren’t smart enough to realise that invading Iraq was a dumb idea lanuched by lies? Ever read any Arabic history?
I take it you also believe the US should stay now? If so what would you say the “succes criteria” will be for making this “mission accomplished”?
Spiros
Yes its a it like the crocodile tears Netinyahu cried after the assassination of Rabin. They must be quietly praying for it, to that vengeful-benevolent god they’ve invented for themselves.
Socrates,
Thanks for asking. I started out against (thought the justifications were weak) but ended up supporting for other reasons. But all that is completely separate to the question of whether to stay. I don’t think there’s a foreseeable “mission accomplished�. I think there needs to be a permanent presence in Iraq like in Japan/South Korea/Germany. Leaving now would be a massive betrayal of the Iraqi people, many of whom would die unnecessarily.
Joseph
So no criteria for success or failure. Do you think the US presence in Iraq is itself one of the causes of the violence? The “we’re needed” argument has been tried before for Soviet troops in Afghanistan and even right back to US troops in Vietnam. All such attempts failed because they failed to understand the local politics. I don’t doubt that if US troops leave Iraq it will eb a mess adn teh government may fall. But that doesn’t mean things are any better by staying. Hopefully for Iraq’s sake Obama will admit that.
The criteria for success is a stable Iraq where people can go about their business without being blown up in the streets. Even if that happens I think there still has to be a significant garrison left behind on an indefinite basis. Whether the initial action was right or wrong, the US has a responsibility to ensure that the newly created state remains viable.
It’s not a happy situation. There will be more violence and more death, and there will probably be no clear end for a long time. But the alternative is worse.
“The criteria for success is a stable Iraq where people can go about their business without being blown up in the streets.”
Jeez that was what it was like before Bush turned it into a bloodbath, cheered on by morons like you. The American presence there is causing precisely the opposite effect. It is widely perceived by the Iraqi population as a major cause for the violence. And believing that American forces are there to make life peaceful for the Iraqis is as idiotic as believing that they went into Iraq because they thought they were threatened by Saddam’s WMD.
I think it will be interesting, if ican put it that way, what iraq will be like once america leaves. The fact that this war should never have happened is really irrelevant. All that really matters is what Iraq will be like if America leaves now though it is hard to see how it could get any worse.
John feel free to replace the word ‘morons’ with ‘people’. my apologies.
McCain fell into a lake in the middle of Hanoi, just as he was pulling out of a bombing raid on a civilian power station in a densely populated residential area. I forget how much of him was broken, but it included both of his arms and he was unconscious. The civilians he had just been bombing rescued him from the lake. He was put in hospital in a full chest cast. It is my belief that this is the reason why he cannot raise his arms – nothing to do with subsequent beatings (Wikipedia is based on his own account). Vietnamese hospitals did not and still do not have nurses. As in most hospitals in Asia, families have to bring food, look after patients’ toilet, etc. So McCain was sent to prison early in his treatment so that his fellow POWs could nurse him. By Vietnamese standards of the day he was quite well looked after considering that he was a war criminal. Lucky for him he had family strings he could pull!
As for Obama, I just hope that he will stop putting his foreign policy foot in his mouth!
umm… So how exactly was McCain a war criminal Melanie? Personally I would save the term Bush, Blair and Howard.
(for)
“I take it you both weren’t smart enough to realise that invading Iraq was a dumb idea lanuched by lies?”
Well it’s like this Socrates. I always thought Blair in particular and Bush, after 9/11 recognised that the ME was the greatest threat to world peace and in particular to we in the West, since the fall of the commie wall, which was a tremendous plus. Clearly they managed to convince most of those that matter (COW) of that case too and that Iraq should be chosen for a number of reasons. Read John Howard’s press club speech above for those eloquent reasons. As a result of that joint analysis and intel on WMD, coupled with the belief that Saddam’s ‘secular’ Iraq would be the best of a bad lot, that decision was agreed upon and in they went. Now as we know, Saddam was very effective in fooling everyone(including his own generals and Kevin Rudd) that he still had WMD, but eventually various enquiries showed that at best, these Govts were listening to intel drinking its own bathwater. A criticism could be made that they were too ready to do so, but my criticism would be that they made this their central narrative, when it was really all about a beacon of light in the ME. Basically to try and sort out a festering sore, albeit an important one because our societies run on oil, despite the fact that left greenies don’t apparently, or so they’ll kid themselves. However central narrative equals implicit promise to the critics and hence ‘they lied, nyar, nyar’ and they have to cop it sweet now like the Rudd Govt’s ‘working families’ and their petrol prices when they might have had GW largely on their mind. The lesson here is, be careful which central narrative you choose, lest it come back to bite you in the proverbial and give the critics a field day. However, that’s easy for we impotent pure to say, because Oppositions don’t get to choose where it counts if you get my drift.
Was Iraq a dumb idea? Well I always thought it would be a case of great statesmen or naive fools and for mine the jury is still out on that, although the latter looked likely for a while pre-surge and AQ pissing off the locals big time. Anyway it was no dumber than Afghanistan or for Oz in particular ET. I always thought ET was the biggest risk for us, but the Indos decided we could have them if we were that dumb(bye bye Timor Sea oil treaty too) and threw a match on the joint and nicked off. They may well have been right.
“I take it you also believe the US should stay now? If so what would you say the “succes criteriaâ€? will be for making this “mission accomplishedâ€??”
I do think the US should stay now and we should have too, given the progress post surge. It certainly makes more sense for Oz than being out of Iraq and only in Afghanistan now. Perhaps a more logical stance for Oz would be out of both now, given the EU/UN axis enthusiasm for the job.
For me it will be ‘mission accomlished’ when the Iranian nutjob regime collapses like the Soviets did, due to the glaring mirror of a resaonably democratic and civil Iraq being held up to the neighbours to look into. Then Syria, then… Well what a supreme optimist you might say. No more of an optimist than those who say we should stay the course in Afghanistan now. For mine the graveyard of empires was always a more problematic project and if it all went pear shaped (is it now?), there was never any fallback Plan B IMO. However there was always an implicit one in Iraq. Divide and conquer if it went belly up. Sunni and Shia Islam at each other’s throats, drawing in all of Islam, with Osama and the boys battling to be heard above the din and wondering which side to back. That would leave us free to get on with our lives without the Religion of Peace intruding and flog them all the guns they want for oil, in order to get to Paradise. What more could they want, if that’s the sort of guys they really are? I like to think Iraqis aren’t of course, unlike the critics.
Now you might like to ask the ‘good war’ crowd the same questions Socrates, not that they’ll ever answer, for to do so quickly opens them up to the schizophrenia and hypocrisy of their overall position. It forces them into uncomfortable tradeoffs, so it’s much easier to sit off and effectively side with the fundies, feigning concern for mankind all the time. What else did you expect once their favourite team went belly up and they had noone to barrack for? Cheer for the A team? Not bloody likely.
Mind you Socrates, perhaps the Jerrys and Frogs were right all along in figuring the Anglo’s beacon of light, Marshall Plan, nation building stuff was all pie in the sky really. They probably knew their GenY electorates better and knew they’d never be in it for the long haul. Better to give them new shock and awe computer games and instant gratification on Youtube, given its success with GW1, the Serbs and Ghaddafi. Whack the bastards’ palaces and holiday homes, etc, along with the regime’s military power base and the population’s utilities and infrastructure. Life’s not much fun being dictator in a bunker with the population freezing or sweating in the dark and your trappings of office turned to rubble. Cop that and there’ll be more of the same if you give us any more trouble. Perhaps the critics of Iraq were right all along in that respect and that’s the thinking now with Iran. Makes sense when you think about all the grumbling and reluctance over Iraq and Afghanistan now.
Come to think of it blokes like me and Bushie and Howard are probably living in the past, still clinging to Test Cricket, when the 20/20 writing’s on the wall Socrates.
observa
You are ignoring the biggest self contradiction of the “bring democracy” to the Middle East idea. The largest obstacles to democracy in the ME were and remain the western backed governments in Egypt, the Gulf and Lebanon. For Christ’s sake, America is giving the Mubarak regime $2 billion a year to thwart democracy in Egypt. The idea that anyone in Washington really cared about democracy in Iraq is absurd. Need I remind you that the only reason the elections happened at all was the pressure applied by the Shiite community and Sistani? Any American administration serious about democracy would start with its allies, particularly those it has alot of leverage over like Egypt and Jordan. Why spend $500 billion to bring democracy to Iraq when you bring it to Egypt for nothing? Judge people by their actions, not by projecting our own hopes onto them. You sound as naive as an Obama supporter. If Washington does not doing the simple, easy things to bring demcracy to the ME then Washington does not care about dmocracy in the ME.
Well that’s the trouble with the left mindset Socrates. They never understand priorities and tradeoffs. Always off wanting to drain the swamp when there’s alligators climbing in the boat that need to be dealt with pronto. Now you can’t have nice eggs the way you like without breaking a few, or raising good chooks, which you’d reckon the left would understand implicitly, particularly the former. Of course they reckon everyone should have their eggs scrambled, but we understand that people like them Benedict, hard boiled, runny, omelettes and sunny side up as well. When it’s patently obvious most free thinking people agree with our superior logic and chook raising skills, the left run off complaining we’re not running free range chooks everywhere. Suddenly all their foxes have magically disappeared.
As an industry, you reckon we should ditch the battery chook sector, stick strictly to free range and go for the shock and awe 1080 campaigns when the fox problem gets out of hand Socrates?
Gojod at 65: Read what I said: “just as he was pulling out of a bombing raid on a civilian power station in a densely populated residential area.” Now look at your laws of war.
If Clinton ends up as Obama’s VP I’ll eat my hat.
#71 when you know you’re full of it just dish up a scrambled pile of nonsensical metaphors. By the way ever heard of the Office of Special Plans? The Downing Street Memo? “Intelligence” my arse, but at least you did manage to touch on the actual reason in passing: “our societies run on oil”. Don’t say that the lefties don’t realize that fact – they realize it better than most, which is why they realized that the reasons for war were other than the ludicrously illogical ones served up by Bush and company.
If I was Hillary, I certainly would not want to be Obama’s VP. I fully concur with the US editor of the New Statesman that Obama is possibly “the least qualified presidential nominee ever.” To be his VP would be to condemn oneself to just four years in office and I’m sure Hillary wants to be around for longer than that.
wow melanie, that article is a real load of crap! as if Hillary didn’t bring her defeat on her self with her hypocritical Karl Rove style campaign tactics – “hard working white voters” don’t want to vote for this black “elitist”, saying McCain is better qualified than Obama, saying I’m behind now but I won’t drop out because he might get shot! Hiring the Republican Mark Penn as her campaign manager and professional election loser Terry McAulliffe as her campaign advisor, relying on big lobbyists for donations and ignoring grassroots campaigning – what did she expect? If I was Obama I wouldn’t have Clinton anywhere near me – his message is change, she represents the failed corpo-Right DLC policies of the 1990s that discredited the Democratic party and paved the way for Bush’s reign of terror. the whole charge of being ‘least qualified’ is garbage. perhaps the less qualified the better, if by qualifications you mean voting to authorize a criminal war based on obvious lies and refusing to apologize for it, a bankruptcy bill to impoverish people with medical emergencies, voting against a bill to ban cluster bombs… that’s Clinton, but Cheney’s ever better qualified!
Anyway as his defeat of Clinton proves, Obama’s certainly qualified where it counts: political organization, which probably comes from his time as a community organizer in Chicago while Hillary was yucking it up on the union bashing Wal-Mart board. frankly I think it’s a good thing he hasn’t spent much time in DC’s fetid, rotten cesspit of corruption.
Ian Gould at #38 “The only people I’ve seen raise this issue have been extreme right-wing Republicans”
The person raising it was Douglas Valentine, neither extreme right-wing nor Republican, but rather author of the definitive study of the Phoenix [assassination] Program, in the last but one print edition of Counterpunch. He cites an impressive array of fellow inmates’ testimony inter alia. A teaser-summary of the Valentine article is at http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn04192008.html