The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Al Qaeda and Iraq
There weren’t a lot of surprises in President Obama’s Afghanistan speech…, but here’s one: The president quietly repudiated the myth that Iraq has nothing to do with al Qaeda. The acknowledgment came in this passage:
We must keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region. Of course, this burden is not ours alone to bear. This is not just America’s war. Since 9/11, al Qaeda’s safe havens have been the source of attacks against London and Amman and Bali.
Amman? Do you remember the attack on Jordan’s capital? It happened Nov. 9, 2005, as the New York Times reported:
Terrorist bombs ripped through three hotels in the Jordanian capital, Amman, tonight, killing dozens of people and wounding hundreds more in what appeared to be a coordinated suicide attack, Jordanian officials said.
At least 57 people were killed and more than 300 injured when bombs exploded at a wedding party at the Radisson SAS, the lobby of the Grand Hyatt and outside a Days Inn, Jordanian officials said.
Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher gave varying casualty estimates to CNN, saying at least 53 initially, then as high as 67. Early casualty tolls in such chaotic situations often fluctuate wildly, and it was impossible to know with any confidence just how many people had been killed and injured.
Mr. Muasher also said that while there was no initial claim of responsibility, he regarded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, as a “prime suspect.”
When a U.S. air strike killed Zarqawi in June 2006, the Times noted that he was indeed behind the 2005 attack in Amman, as well as two earlier operations:
The only attacks outside Iraq known to be directed by Mr. Zarqawi were in Jordan, said an American counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity because his agency does not permit him to discuss such matters on the record. Those attacks include the 2002 murder of Laurence Foley, an American diplomat; a foiled plot in 2004 to attack the United States Embassy and Jordanian intelligence headquarters; and bombings of three Amman hotels in November that killed 60 people.
Little wonder Obama also said in his speech that “the wrenching debate over the Iraq war is well-known and need not be repeated here.” That’s easier than admitting that he has changed his mind and now regards Iraq as having been an al Qaeda safe haven and source of international terrorism.
Curiously, Obama also blurred the focus on Osama bin Laden, who went unmentioned in last night’s speech except to say that the U.S. and its allies intervened in Afghanistan “only after the Taliban refused to turn over Osama bin Laden.” This is quite a contrast with his 2008 Democratic National Convention speech:
When John McCain said we could just “muddle through” in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell–but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.
Obama did, as is his wont, devote some time last night to rehashing complaints about the previous administration, and he now stands accused of delivering false information. The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb has the statement from Donald Rumsfeld, who served as defense secretary from 2001 through 2006:
In his speech to the nation last night, President Obama claimed that “Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.” Such a bald misstatement, at least as it pertains to the period I served as Secretary of Defense, deserves a response.
I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006. If any such requests occurred, “repeated” or not, the White House should promptly make them public. The President’s assertion does a disservice to the truth and, in particular, to the thousands of men and women in uniform who have fought, served and sacrificed in Afghanistan.
In the interest of better understanding the President’s announcement last night, I suggest that the Congress review the President’s assertion in the forthcoming debate and determine exactly what requests were made, who made them, and where and why in the chain of command they were denied.
Something tells us that will not be rehashed. Those now in power in Washington are interested in rehashing the preceding administration only when they can use it to produce excuses for themselves.
The policy Obama adopted after months of ostentatious dithering is about as good as anyone could have expected, but the tone of his speech doesn’t seem to have inspired anyone. Here’s Tunku Varadarajan’s review:
What has struck me most about Obama’s Afghan enterprise–and his speech did not cause me to alter my view–is how obvious it is that he doesn’t really want to do it. He wants to do health care. Obama has tried every delaying trick in the book–waiting for three months after Gen. McChrystal’s request for more troops, having meeting after meeting after meeting, sending Gen. Jones to tell McChrystal not to ask for more troops, having his economic team say it will cost too much, framing the venture in terms of “exit strategies” rather than victory, etc. His ambivalence was on naked display [last night]. Can you imagine Churchill delivering a speech like this, one so full of a sense of the limitation of national possibilities? No wonder Hillary [Clinton]–when the camera panned to her–looked like she needed a drink. No wonder the cadets all looked so depressed. Would you want Eeyore for commander in chief?
Across the Atlantic, Der Spiegel’s Gabor Steingart had a similar reaction:
Obama’s magic no longer works. The allure of his words has grown weaker.
It is not he himself who has changed, but rather the benchmark used to evaluate him. For a president, the unit of measurement is real life. A leader is seen by citizens through the prism of their lives–their job, their household budget, where they live and suffer. And, in the case of the war on terror, where they sometimes die.
Political dreams and yearnings for the future belong elsewhere. That was where the political charmer Obama was able to successfully capture the imaginations of millions of voters. It is a place where campaigners–particularly those with a talent for oration–are fond of taking refuge. It is also where Obama set up his campaign headquarters, in an enormous tent called “Hope.”
In his speech on America’s new Afghanistan strategy, Obama tried to speak to both places. It was two speeches in one. That is why it felt so false. Both dreamers and realists were left feeling distraught.
This overstates the case. Only those who were taken in by Obama’s “magic” in the first place have any reason to feel distraught. The rest of us wish he were better suited to the role of wartime president. In this respect, at least, the country would be better off if Obama really did have brilliant oratorical skills. Yet to paraphrase Rich Lowry paraphrasing Secretary Rumsfeld, you go to war with the president you have, not the one you’d like to have.
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