The Daily Background

Clinton at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Missouri:

“We’ve begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Al Anbar Province, it’s working,” said Mrs. Clinton, the New York Democrat and candidate for her party’s presidential nomination. “We’re just years too late changing our tactics. We can’t ever let that happen again. We can’t be fighting the last war; we have to be preparing to fight the new war.”

The remarks were notable because Mrs. Clinton has been a consistent critic of the Bush administration’s troop escalation in Iraq, and Republican presidential candidates have been seizing on signs of progress in Al Anbar Province in arguing against a troop withdrawal.

Now, granted, this is a different audience from, say, Yearly Kos or the AFL-CIO. It’s mostly old, conservative-ish veterans who want to stay in Iraq. But that doesn’t mean that I think Clinton should be given a pass on that. She should come back and explain to us (or if she doesn’t, reporters should ask) what she means when she uses this kind of rhetoric, such as that the surge is working, or that we have to prepare for “the new war” (does “new” sound a lot like “next” to anyone else?).

A couple of caveats. A lot of people have criticized Obama for making remarks suggesting he might take action against al Qaeda in Pakistan (and a lot of what he originally said has been distorted and misreported beyond recognition), and interpreted that as a “new war” he could start, but I think it’s important to note that he’s not talked about a “new” war, or “new” enemies– rather finding bin Laden, and his associates who are now hiding in Pakistan, according to most intelligence experts. Something this administration has wholly failed to do.

I am also skeptical about what Clinton seems to be saying with regard to the escalation. Is she saying that it’s working? After all, she did say “it’s working” and that “We’re just years too late changing our tactics.” Does this mean she’s endorsing the results of the so-called surge? Has Clinton forgotten what the purpose of the surge is? It wasn’t to reduce violence here or there (and it hasn’t even done that– it’s only shifted the areas of violence to new areas, or as Defense Secretary Robert Gates says, forced insurgents to “squirt” into new locations in a game of whack-a-mole), it was to reduce violence enough to make political reconciliation possible. That was the goal of the “surge.” And on the national political side, it’s been nothing but a complete failure.

Is Clinton buying into the Administration’s line that the “surge” is working and that it only needs more time?

Again, as I said, this is a different audience. McCain got huge cheers for saying we shouldn’t consider withdrawal. And it wasn’t like Clinton chose to appear before the VFW to lay out a big policy speech or anything– they only invited four candidates (McCain and Clinton, who appeared on Monday, and F. Thompson and Obama, who will appear today), and this isn’t the type of group you can just decline an invitation from. Unless of course you want to be blasted with silly rhetoric of the type that Clinton surrogates have already used on Obama (“So he’ll meet with dictators but not the black caucus or seniors in Iowa?”).

We’ll see what Obama has to say later today. This is a different audience, but remember, this was a guy who went to the Detroit auto manufacturers and said we needed higher fuel efficiency standards, and was called naive for not pandering to them and telling them exactly what they wanted to hear.

Note: this is the fourth in an occasional series, with previous editions including What the hell is Ron Paul talking about?, What in the hell is Senator Nelson talking about?, and What the hell is John McCain talking about?

Update: Apparently at least five candidates were invited, not four as the NYT reported. The fifth? Mitt Romney. But he declined to attend, and is getting the same kind of attack I predicted anybody who declined would get. This time, unsurprisingly, from the DNC:

After months of demonstrating his lack of understanding of the challenges facing America’s veterans and military families and refusing to outline a plan for Iraq, smooth talking Mitt Romney has elected to skip this week’s 108th annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City. According to a VFW spokesperson, Romney “was invited but declined” to participate in the annual conference of one of America’s largest veteran’s organizations.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog