Oh, Judgment?

Today John McCain set the record straight. He's not questioning Obama's patriotism, he's questioning Obama's judgment.

That would be the judgment that was against invading Iraq. That would be the judgment that has been calling for an increased commitment to Afghanistan for years, and now that Afghanistan is reaching a point of crisis (a HUNDRED insurgents attacked the French? A separate attacked tried to overrun an entire base in Khost?), even the Pentagon is starting to agree:

The Pentagon will be sending 12,000 to 15,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, possibly as soon as the end of this year, with planning underway for a further force buildup in 2009.

A request by Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, for three U.S. brigades with support staff has been approved. "Now that means we just need to figure out a way to get them there," adds a senior defense official [...]

And there may be even more to come. "I've also asked for some additional forces on top of that for the current fight," says McKiernan, who wants to bolster the 101st Airborne Division in Regional Command East, which has been rocked by recent insurgent attacks. In July, nine U.S. troops were killed by insurgents who overran a combat outpost on the Kunar border of eastern Afghanistan. This week, militants tried but failed to overrun a base in Khost, just a few miles from the border, launching waves of attacks just before midnight on Monday.

Finding those particular troops to supplement the 101st, however, depends on conditions and troop levels in Iraq, adds McKiernan, who took over the NATO command in June. "That's really a zero-sum decision."

I don't agree with dumping more forces into Afghanistan long-term, although there does appear to be a short-term security crisis. But isn't it interesting how Obama is driving the actual foreign policy results, with McCain (and Bush) following? More troops for Afghanistan, a time horizon for Iraq, moving beyond Musharraf in Pakistan? On all of these judgments, Obama is on much more solid ground, and gets there much faster than his opponents.

Another facet to this: Spencer Ackerman flags NATO Commander McKiernan's comments about more troops being a "zero-sum decision" and says that comment was directed right at David Petraeus. Iraq has its own problems - the looming powderkeg in Kirkuk, a more assertive Nouri al-Maliki pushing around prominent Sunnis throughout the country and muscling out Shiite rivals before provincial elections, the very real threat of spasms of violence if the elections are seen as rigged - but those are localized and, honestly, inevitable in the jockeying for power, and our troops there are serving no national interest. Whereas in Afghanistan, there's at least some notional national interest in a short-term effort to garner some sense of stability. But with troops tied up in Iraq, Afghanistan gets short shrift, and it will soon be Petraeus' job to make assessments of the whole region, at which point he'll need to take the Iraq blinders off.