Will Bush Iraq plan affect US race?

By Adam Brookes
BBC News, Washington

In the current presidential race, Iraq is the dog that didn't bark.

And Afghanistan the dog that, at most, whimpered.

Neither issue has emerged as a defining issue of contention between the candidates.

To a striking degree, America's two wars have been overshadowed in the minds of American voters by a contest of personalities, the threat of recession, and the strange, at times incomprehensible, debate on energy.

So expect President Bush's commitment to withdrawing some 8,000 combat and combat support troops from Iraq to have little direct impact on the course of this race.

Iraq has "gone to a new zero as an issue of political salience", said one Democratic Party insider. "The US public just doesn't want to hear about it."

Advantage McCain

Still, news of troop withdrawals does serve to bolster the Bush administration's position: security in Iraq has improved sufficiently for us to begin - if ever so slowly - bringing the troops home.

And between Senators McCain and Obama, it is Mr McCain who is more likely to benefit from a public perception that the situation in Iraq is stabilising. He has been a staunch supporter of the "surge" strategy, and is now able to argue that he was right.

And expect the president's announcement that he will send some 4,000 soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to strengthen the US presence there, also, to have limited direct impact on the race.

"Are we at this point losing the war in Afghanistan? The answer is clearly yes"
Anthony Cordesman
Center for Strategic and International Studies

Barack Obama has argued frequently that Iraq distracted the US from the more pressing business of Afghanistan.

So, arguably, as the American effort in Afghanistan ramps up, Senator Obama looks prescient.

But this is not an issue that can, of itself, change the course of the race.

Afghanistan receives little airtime here, and public understanding of that country's plight is patchy.

On the McCain-Palin 2008 website, Afghanistan does not appear to merit its own page explaining the Senator's position.

But Senator McCain has said he favours sending three more combat brigades to Afghanistan, a unified military command bringing together Nato and US forces, and a doubling in size of the Afghan armed forces.

Nor is there a dedicated Afghanistan page on Barackobama.com, as far as I could see.

But Senator Obama is committed to sending two extra brigades to Afghanistan, and adding a billion dollars in non-military aid.

Crisis

Both positions assume that the outcome of the conflict in Afghanistan affects America's security, that the situation there is serious, and that the international effort must be strengthened; there is not much to choose between them.

The lack of election buzz or electricity surrounding the Afghan question is perhaps strange.

In military and diplomatic circles, here and abroad, Afghanistan is viewed as being in crisis.

Diplomats warn privately that President Hamid Karzai is losing the trust of western governments, and that the security situation is deteriorating in Pashtun areas, even though the Taleban do not have the support of the civilian population.

The outgoing representative of the European Union to Kabul, Francesc Vendrell, told the BBC that the Bush administration "still hopes to present Afghanistan as a success story", and thus do not want any change in strategy.

"We will need to wait, not for very long, for a new administration to be established¿", he said, "because clearly what we are doing so far is not going to lead to success."

A Washington source with close links to the US military described senior officers' mood on Afghanistan as "dark".

Instead of bidding on troop increases, said the source, senior officers would rather be discussing strategy.

"How do we formulate the language," he asked, "to start discussing a twenty year commitment in Afghanistan - which is what it will take?"

Do not expect either candidate to be the first to come out with such language.

That would, say experts on Washington, be a very dubious electoral strategy.

Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is scathing about what he sees as both candidates' reluctance to confront the issues of Afghanistan, or Iraq.

He says they are trapped in a "theatre of the absurd" where they "issue sound bites as if they were plans and policies."

"Are we at this point losing the war in Afghanistan? The answer is clearly yes. There is no real debate about it," he says.