Outmaneuvered?

Barack Obama is co-opting the center when it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan, and John McCain may be left on the margin

All along, the ideal approach toward winding down America's costly involvement in Iraq has been to leave as soon as possible, but no sooner -- meaning that the exit should be managed to avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of something that might resemble victory.

When the war was nothing but a hideous hemorrhage of lives and treasure, with Iraqis killing each other by the thousands and U.S. troops caught in the middle, it seemed far-fetched to think that our continued presence could help turn the tide for the better. The loss of more than 4,000 American lives in what looked to many to be a futile cause was bad enough without more sacrifice that simply compounded the damage.

That was the perspective shared by Sen. Barack Obama and many Democratic voters who helped propel him toward their party's presidential nomination. Then, some positive news for a change -- mainstream Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites began to turn on the violent extremists in their own sects, and the surge of American forces ordered by President Bush gained momentum with a new counterterrorism strategy.

The upshot is that violence has abated to the point that troops deployed in connection with the surge have been withdrawn or are in the process of leaving.

Iraqi forces are showing more confidence and ability as they confront remaining insurgent elements (who continue their attacks, but less intensely). Political progress within the fractured Iraqi government is halting but is occurring. In other words, gains both military and political are fragile but unmistakable.

Surge plot thickens

Naturally, this plot line looms large in Obama's contest with Sen. John McCain. The Republican nominee-in-waiting can point to his support of the surge with a hearty "told you so." But the surge's success has had the ironic effect of undercutting McCain's effort to carve out some kind of further stay-the-course policy that would, by contrast, make Obama look like a defeatist for continuing to advocate a U.S. pullback.

The Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, with Obama visiting Baghdad earlier this week, gave the Democrat a credibility boost by seeming to endorse his timetable of an American disengagement within 16 months of the new administration taking office. And even Bush managed to get more or less on the same page with Maliki by agreeing that it was time to think in terms of a "horizon" for withdrawal.

Afghan pivot

It turns out that Obama has let his policy evolve toward the common-sense middle. First, he hedges on the extent of a pullback, with his campaign saying that as many as 50,000 Americans might remain as a "residual" force to provide security and training. In other words, he's not willing to let unexpected gains from a policy that he opposed -- the surge -- be squandered for the sake of appealing to the Democratic left wing.

Second, he couches the withdrawal from Iraq as not walking away from a failed and unnecessary war, but as a means of redeploying troops to a war that most Americans agree is necessary and that could well fail without a heavier commitment. That is the war against al-Qaida and the terrorist-aligned Taliban in Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been adamant in calling for reinforcements there, and Iraq is the logical place to find them.

McCain may have been correct in his judgment that the surge could work and that the cause for which so many Americans have died -- a democratic Iraq that could defend itself and was more friend than foe to the United States -- was not lost.

But Obama finds himself in an enviable position nevertheless. If he can plausibly chart a path out of combat in Iraq while the Iraqi government continues to strengthen, and while furthering the U.S. cause in Afghanistan, he may leave McCain wondering how this antiwar upstart managed to eat his lunch.