Clinton, Obama and McCain Advisers Clash Over "War on Terror"

Last week's violent clashes in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Basra reverberated all the way to Washington, where suddenly, the Iraq war was thrust back into the limelight just as the 2008 primary season enters its final stretch.

On Monday at the Washington think-tank the Brookings Institution, foreign policy advisers from the major campaigns sought to fit the Shia-on-Shia armed power struggle into their plans for Iraq -- with Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama advocating a phased withdrawal, and Republican John McCain arguing for a continued high level of troops in the country.

Built into all three narratives was the persistent question of what is the central front in the so-called "global war on terror" -- whether the most important battle with Islamic extremism is in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan and its border regions with Pakistan where al Qaeda's central leadership is based, and how the two theaters stand to affect each other.

McCain's adviser and the Democrats both said that their respective plans would bolster the effort in Afghanistan.

Randy Scheunemann, the top adviser in McCain's foreign policy apparatus, echoed the George W. Bush administration's long-time rationale that a withdrawal from Iraq amounts to a defeat that would embolden global terrorists.

"We learned in the 1990s that we needed to take al Qaeda at its word," he said. "They have said themselves that Iraq is the central front in the war they are fighting with the West. I don't see how we are going to better address our goals in Afghanistan if we are defeated in Iraq."

How a withdrawal from Iraq would help U.S. efforts in Afghanistan was clear to the Democratic advisors -- it would make some of the over 100,000 troops in Iraq available to pursue global terrorists where they are based, and free up billions in treasure to address that conflict.

"Defeat is staying in Iraq for 100 years because that will have very, very serious consequences for us in Afghanistan and Pakistan," said Clinton adviser Lee Feinstein, adding that in Afghanistan, "Al Qaeda is as strong as any point since 9/11."

McCain has said that he has no issues with staying in Iraq for over 100 years. And while he describes that length of time as a Korea-like plan for permanent bases, it is unclear when and how that shift from a hot war to that sort of peacetime military presence would be possible.

"What is in America's broadest strategic interests? For example, if we maintain an indefinite commitment to Iraq, are we going to be able to address the forgotten frontline in Afghanistan?" said Feinstein.

Calling operations in Iraq a "diversion from our effort in Afghanistan and to the principal front in this fight against al Qaeda," Obama adviser Denis McDonough said that despite the requests of commanders in southern Afghanistan for more troops to quell rising violence in the region, those troops are not available and "on the shelf" because of the massive commitment in Iraq.

Last week, as reported by IPS, the president of the Army War College, Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, said that the way U.S. troop levels stand now is already unsustainable, noting that the math simply does not work.

"You can't take a 43 brigade force, and have 23 of those 43 brigades deployed, and have a one-to-one exchange for time at home and time in the theater," he said.

In Iraq, insurgent militias are organized by religious identities, but their religious extremism is not directed at the U.S. generally or the U.S. homeland, but rather against U.S. occupation.

While foreign jihadis do exist there, Sunni fighters associated with the al Qaeda spin-off group, al Qaeda in Iraq, have since drawn close to the U.S. as part of the Sawa movement, otherwise known as the Sunni Awakening, spurning al Qaeda in Iraq and marginalizing them.