Sunni Awakening…in 2006?

If you’ve watched many of Obama’s interviews from the Middle East, one of the recurring questions for him has been about The Surge and if he would support it after seeing it’s effect on Iraq. Obviously since the nightmare that was 2006, Iraq has stepped away from the brink of civil war and seems to be heading back towards a functioning state. And The Surge was obviously one of many factors that led to the new security in the country. But it wasn’t the only thing that contributed to the increased security. Also credited with helping stabilize Iraq was the increased presence of the Iraqi government and the so-called “Sunni Awakening.”

Obama has said that those three things together contributed to the security which I don’t necessarily disagree with. But last night on CBS “Evening News” with Katie Couric, she asked McCain what she thought of Obama’s assertion that he would still not vote for The Surge. Notice in the video that CBS also edited the interview so that McCain essentially gave another answer. Not really sure why they did that but it’s interesting nonetheless.

So…basically McCain is either confused about the timeline or he’s trying to rewrite history.The Sheik in question was being approached and protected by the United States in the last few weeks of 2006 which was about 2 months before the first rumors of The Surge even began to emerge. This is important because McCain essentially claimed that they decided to start fighting for their country after The Surge began, not before as reality has it. And that means that before the United States decided to increase the troop levels, these Sunni (who used to have control of country despite being the minority) leaders were beginning to take responsibility for the violence and began efforts to stop it in the volatile Anbar province.

Would that have singlehandedly solved the violence problems? Probably not, but it suggests that even without The Surge, people were beginning to see that they needed to do something to save their country and with the Iraqi government strengthening and gaining more legitimacy, the increased troop levels served as the final piece of the puzzle. But that doesn’t really help McCain’s case if he plays by history’s rules.

Now, the only reason I’m posting about this is becuase it’s a continuing problem with McCain. He confused Shi’ia and Sunni when he last visited the Middle East, continues to insist that Czechoslovakia is still a country, and claims that Iraq and Pakistan share a border.

Obviously Obama isn’t immune to his fair share of gaffes or missteps. I know just yesterday during the press conference he said “Israel will always be a friend of Israel” when he meant to say the United States (hell, I’d hope Israel wants to be friends with itself). But Obama isn’t claiming to be a master of foreign policy like McCain has and these mistakes that he keeps making seem to suggest he gets easily confused over the subject.

As usual though, a McCain misstep seems to be nothing more than a passing mention on the news cycle, but God forbid we don’t have any terrorist fist jabs. Also look forward to a post about my opinions on The Surge in the next few days.

Terrorist fist jab?