GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
Washington Post-ABC News Iraq/Afghanistan Survey
Regardless of who you may support, who do you trust more to handle the war in Iraq - Barack Obama or John McCain?
- John McCain 47%
- Barack Obama 45%
Please tell me whether the following statement applies to Obama/McCain, or not?
He would be a good commander-in-chief of the military. (Yes/No)
- John McCain 72% / 25%
- Barack Obama 48% / 48%
Do you think Obama/McCain has been clear or unclear in his position on withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq? (Clear/Unclear)
- John McCain 60% / 34%
- Barack Obama 56% / 38%
Obama has proposed a timetable to withdraw most U.S. forces from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office. McCain has opposed a specific timetable and said events should dictate when troops are withdrawn. Which approach do you prefer - a timetable or no timetable?
- Timetable 50%
- No timetable 49%
All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting, or not? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?
- Worth fighting 36%
- Not worth fighting 63%
Do you think the United States is or is not making significant progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq?
- Is making significant progress 46%
- Is not making significant progress 51%
Do you think the United States must win the war in Iraq in order for the broader war on terrorism to be a success, or do you think the war on terrorism can be a success without the United States winning the war in Iraq?
- US must win war in Iraq for success 34%
- Can be a success without US winning war in Iraq 60%
Thinking now about Afghanistan, all in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war in Afghanistan was worth fighting, or not?
- Yes, worth fighting 51%
- No, not worth fighting 45%
Overall, do you think the U.S. military action in Afghanistan against the Taliban and Al Qaeda has been successful or not successful?
- Successful 44%
- Not successful 51%
Note: More Americans (46%) believe the US is making significant progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq than they think our military action in Afghanistan against the Taliban and Al Qaeda has been successful (44%).
Do you think the United States must win the war in Afghanistan in order for the broader war on terrorism to be a success, or do you think the war on terrorism can be a success without the United States winning the war in Afghanistan?
- US must win war in Afghanistan for success 51%
- Can be a success without US winning war in Afghanistan 42%
This Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone July 10-13, 2008, among a random national sample of 1,119 adults, including additional interviews with randomly selected African Americans, for a total of 209 black respondents. The additional interviews (commonly referred to as an “oversample”) were completed to ensure there were enough African American respondents for separate analysis; the group was not over-represented in the reported results from the full sample. The results from the full survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
The polling data underscore why the two campaigns are fighting the war over the war so fiercely. Ahead of today’s speech and a planned trip to Iraq, Obama wrote an opinion article in yesterday’s New York Times, saying that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s call last week for a withdrawal timetable is an opportunity the United States must embrace.
“Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country,” Obama wrote, pledging that he would stick to his plan to begin the withdrawal of one to two combat brigades per month upon taking office.
The Times commentary drew a furious response from the McCain campaign, with Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) calling it “an unbelievably brazen effort by a politician to rewrite history.” He accused Obama of building “a political strategy around losing” the war.
Republicans were not alone in that response. Michael E. O’Hanlon, a Democratic defense analyst at the Brookings Institution who has been an outspoken supporter of the war in Iraq, said he could not believe that Obama would put such a definitive timeline into print before a trip to Iraq, where he is to consult with Iraqi leaders and U.S. commanders.
“To say you’re going to get out on a certain schedule — regardless of what the Iraqis do, regardless of what our enemies do, regardless of what is happening on the ground — is the height of absurdity,” said O’Hanlon, who described himself as “livid.” “I’m not going to go to the next level of invective and say he shouldn’t be president. I’ll leave that to someone else.”
As I pointed out on Sunday, winning a war is a political plus, provided, of course, the electorate accurately perceives the successes achieved on the ground and, conversely, comprehends what would have been the consequences of defeat. John McCain has already earned the necessary confidence and trust of the American people to be our next Commander in Chief. Before becoming the 44th President of the United States, however, he must first avoid repeating the communications failures of his would-be predecessor. As long as a majority of Americans are convinced over the next three and a half months that significant progress is being made toward restoring civil order in Iraq, and it is not coming at the expense of American soldiers’ lives — and the dangers of establishing a timetable for a non-conditions-based withdrawal are increasingly understood — President McCain will be duly rewarded from the White House with an indisputable Mission Accomplished banner.
July 15th, 2008 at 7:04 am
If Mac could just show some energy on the trail he could just sneak away with this!
July 15th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Yeah - unfortunately he is going to need to kick up his energy somehow. He’s got to show more concern and more ENERGY when talking about other things than the Iraq War - because whether we Republicans like it or not - more than half the country has just tuned out when it comes to this issue.
July 15th, 2008 at 7:54 am
It’s stunning to me that 51% of the American public thinks we haven’t made significant progress in restoring civil order, and that a full 60% believes we can have success in the war on terror while losing in Iraq. We’re halfway through the month of July, and we’ve had exactly SIX casualties in Iraq (and at least one of those wasn’t combat related). Last July we had 88. Last June we had 108. Last May we had 131. Assuming casualties don’t spike this month, we will have averaged around 30 casualties a month for the last 8 months, compared 70-100 in the other years of the war. And this includes the relatively violent April, as American troops were forced to expose themselves as preparations for the assault on Mosul began. It’s possible that by the end of the year, we’ll have single digit casualties per month. And we’re not succeeding in “restoring civil order”? Give me a break. The ignorance of the American electorate on this issue is difficult to fathom, but it’s not all their fault. When historians (even the leftwing ones) contemplate the behavior of the American media towards success in Iraq these last 10-12 months, they’ll be forced to label it the most massive concerted propagandizing in American history.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:35 am
I have been following the arguments about Iraq and I think McCain is being outmaneuvered. Partly because he simply gets more attention I know and understand where Obama stands on Iraq, which is removing 1-2 brigades a month and leaving forces to protect our assets and some more as a strike/counter-insurgency force. He has also said he would send additional troops to Afghanistan.
I go to McCain’s website, I listen to his speeches, but I don’t know McCain’s plan beyond the idea that events on the ground will dictate.
McCain may be right in letting events dictate our next move, but politically that is not an acceptable message. Also, Afghanistan is getting worse and Obama has been saying that for a long time. I just get the feeling that McCain assumed he would win the Iraq debate simply on his record and not by offering a competing plan.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:39 am
the fact that after all these years of bush, mccain is still crushing obama on national security.
national security + energy + obama’s inexperience = president mccain
July 15th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Here’s a link to Michael Yon’s post yesterday. http://www.michaelyon-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1690:success-in-iraq&catid=34:dispatches&Itemid=55#yvComment
He’s spent more time in Iraq then anyone else, and he was the first person to declare Iraq in a state of Civil War. Now? Here’s what he has to say.
“I would go so far as to say that barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on Iran and the retaliations that would follow), a fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs…. by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.”
And we haven’t succeeded in restoring civil order? My goodness. Read the whole thing, it’s very short.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:02 am
#3
It’s stunning to me that even a very liberal sample - let alone a more “conservative” center-left sample of the electorate that this poll is - can get a FORTY PERCENT response saying it is not vital to win either war, especially the war in Afghanistan.
The mental disorder of liberalism has a much higher incidence/infection rate than I could have possibly imagined. Why did they not ask the question, “What do you think is the best way to protect this nation?”
It wouldn’t be a coincidnce that the same 40% would answer some variation of “Respect other cultures more.”
July 15th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I hate to say this, but we have a lot of really stupid people in the USA, and even more who are totally misinformed.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:28 am
According to excerpts released by the campaign, Obama is expected to say in his speech today: “Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahari are recording messages to their followers and plotting more terror. The Taliban controls parts of Afghanistan… And yet today, we have five times more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan.”
Let me get this straight. Obama is, today, citing messages by Osama and Zawahiri to emphasize the significant threat they pose; just two days after brazenly writing in the New York Times that “Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been.”
Need I remind the naif with the selective hearing disorder of the words of bin Laden and al-Zawahiri that directly contradict the absurd assertion made Sunday by the first term Illinois senator?
Osama bin Laden: “I now address my speech to the whole of the Islamic nation: Listen and understand. The issue is big and the misfortune is momentous. The most important and serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War, which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation. It is raging in the land of the two rivers. The world’s millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate.” - 12/28/04
Ayman al-Zawahiri’s letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - 10/12/05
The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq.
The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate- over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq, i.e., in Sunni areas, is in order to fill the void stemming from the departure of the Americans, immediately upon their exit and before unIslamic forces attempt to fill this void, whether those whom the Americans will leave behind them, or those among the un-Islamic forces who will try to jump at taking power. There is no doubt that this amirate will enter into a fierce struggle with the foreign infidel forces, and those supporting them among the local forces, to put it in a state of constant preoccupation with defending itself, to make it impossible for it to establish a stable state which could proclaim a caliphate, and to keep the Jihadist groups in a constant state of war, until these forces find a chance to annihilate them.
The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.
The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before: the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity.
Chuck Barris, where’s the gong?
July 15th, 2008 at 10:44 am
McCain Will Call for a Surge of Troops to Afghanistan
Senator McCain will announce plans today for an Iraq-style “surge” of troops in Afghanistan.
An adviser to the campaign told The New York Sun that, in a speech to be delivered in Albuquerque, N.M., the senator will call for an increase in combat troops and the creation of a special Afghanistan tsar to coordinate policy toward the country. “There will be a surge for Afghanistan. It will be moving combat troops in and applying the lessons from Iraq and the strategy that was successful in Iraq and taking that to Afghanistan,” this official said.
Mr. McCain has been reluctant to discuss in public what he would do with Afghanistan’s neighbor, Pakistan, where reserve Taliban fighters in the tens of thousands are said to reside unmolested in safe havens created after the Pakistani national army stopped fighting a counterinsurgency in these tribal areas. Mr. McCain has said he will not telegraph what his strategy would be as commander in chief toward this sensitive diplomatic and military problem.
The idea of an Afghan surge was first broached by a Republican rival of Mr. McCain during the primaries, Mayor Giuliani, who called in early January at a speech in New Hampshire for doubling the number of troops in Afghanistan. At the time there were 25,000 American troops in the country. Today there are approximately 33,000 troops in Afghanistan, compared to more than 150,000 in Iraq.
Mr. Giuliani’s director for foreign policy, Charles Hill, in an interview yesterday said it is difficult for presidential candidates to come up with a specific number of additional troops for Afghanistan. “There are a maelstrom of numbers and estimates you can get from the Pentagon on this. Remember there are American troops, but there are also NATO forces. At the end of the day, the next president will have to rely on the commanders in the field,” Mr. Hill said.
Mr. Hill, who was executive assistant to Secretary of State Shultz and is currently a professor of grand strategy at Yale, said the success of American arms in Iraq makes possible more deployments to Afghanistan. “The Iraq war is over. Wars don’t come to an end the way they used to. It ended as best it can end about last December. The front has shifted to the Afghan-Pakistan border. We’ve chased them into that corner. That is a very different situation and difficult to handle because of the border and because the terrorists have a sanctuary there. We can’t get into that sanctuary, but Pakistan does not govern it. It is a black hole in the map of world order,” he said.
Mr. Hill went on to say that the exact tactics that were successful in Iraq would not necessarily apply to Afghanistan. “The surge in Iraq was really a version of clear, hold, and build. When you take territory, you hold it to keep the population secure, in some sense the people would do the rest. They would be entrepreneurial,” he said. “We can’t hold territory in the tribal areas of Pakistan, another way to make the surge workable on the ground has to be found, and that has to be in some form with the Pakistani military.”
In the last two months the Afghan front has claimed more American soldiers than the one in Iraq. Nine American soldiers were killed over the weekend defending a base in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar from a Taliban assault. Last month, the Taliban pulled off a daring prison break near Kandahar. Last year, a national intelligence estimate on Al Qaeda said its leadership had reconstituted in the tribal provinces in Pakistan that border Afghanistan.
July 15th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Obama will surely welcome McCain coming to a position he has long advocated.
July 15th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Paulette,
Not if it’s a position that was first advocated by McCain’s running mate.
July 15th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Planning to Ignore the Facts
By Rich Lowry
July 15th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Aron,
Are you speaking of Rudy again? Will you please give it up.
I listened to a lot of Obama’s speech and to all of McCain’s. I don’t know why his advisors again put him out there in direct competition like that. McCain’s speech was really a set of comments with some new proposals that did not contrast favorably to Obama’s more fulsome remarks. McCain should have stuck to the economy, which is the top issue of the day and he would have won that comparison.
July 15th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Obama loved the surge so much he wants to implement his own surge in Afghanistan. Thanks for the straight talk, Barack!
July 15th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
McCain should be screaming that Obama was wrong about the surge! Who is running his campaign?