Obama to Visit Iraq and Afghanistan

Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, now plans to visit Iraq and Afghanistan. An idea for a joint visit with Republican Party nominee Senator John McCain was promoted by the Arizona senator (as were joint town hall meetings and other venues) but it looks as if Senator Obama will go it alone.

Just a couple of days ago, his foreign policy adviser, Susan Rice, said charges that Senator Obama didn't know much about Iraq because he had not been there since the surge, was, in her words, "complete garbage."

Now, he's going. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say about the surge. Previously, he said it wouldn't work, but in announcing his plans to go, he said he, "...was encouraged by a recent reduction in violence in Iraq." But the second part of his statement reiterated his intention to withdraw U.S. troops: "..it is important for us to begin the process of withdrawing U.S. troops, making it clear that we have no interest in permanent bases in Iraq."

No doubt Senator McCain will disagree with him on that point, and with Iraq not quite the campaign issue it was previously, this might become the object of the debate: bases or no bases? Presence or no presence?

That could be an interesting dialog. No exact word on when this trip will be or take place, only it would be before the November elections. It would be a very well-covered trip and one which would allow Senator Obama to express at least some degree of support for the surge while still advocating troop withdrawal. There could be some interesting exchanges with the troops over that.

BTW, former Vice President, presidential candidate, and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore endorsed Senator Obama.

If energy becomes an issue, Senator McCain is staking out a claim on opening up offshore drilling, saying states should be the ones which decide if they want to drill or not. With energy prices a major concern, public attitudes on offshore drilling (they are usually against it) may be changing. Senator McCain has fairly good environmental credentials and is one of the few Republicans who has pursued the issue. While he doesn't receive the same accolades from environmental groups as Democrats do, he nevertheless is far out in front of the environment in the Republican Party. His task now is to sell this drilling idea as not retreating on the environment. Hopefully, new technology which says it can extract oil in an environmentally acceptable way could help him make the case.