[Conor Friedersdorf]
...there's really something very strange about the conceit that flying to Iraq and taking a guided tour courtesy of the U.S. military is the best way to learn about the country. I went to Spain for a week once, saw the central parts of Madrid and took some day trips to noteworthy towns that were easily accessible by train, but to answer even very basic question about Spain like "how wealthy is this country?" or "how many immigrants live here?" you need to look up the data not wander around.
Matt is right that there are a lot of things visiting a country can't tell you, but my experience of travel is that there are a lot of things visiting a country can tell you that you'd be hard pressed to glean from merely reading up on the place.
Prior to taking residence in Seville during the spring of 2004, I'd lived there for 6 months, read up on Catholicism in Spanish history and enjoyed several descriptive passages about the Holy Week processions that transform the city each year.
As you can imagine, the picture I formed in my head from my reading proved untrue to the experience of actually being in the city for the relevant week. It went beyond my notion of the aesthetics involved -- seeing Semana Santa gave me a whole new perspective on how Catholicism is practiced in different cultures (I attended Catholic school growing up), and challenged my notions about how a secular culture might host a very public religious celebration.Were we fighting a war in Andalusia that included a strong religious aspect, I'd certainly count it as an advantage for a decision-maker to have seen Semana Santa up close.
That's not to say that John McCain will necessarily be better at Iraq policy than Barack Obama (or that Barack Obama will be better at Kenyan policy, for that matter), but were I elected president, I'd want to visit the places I'd be making decisions about to the extent possible, and I hope that whoever prevails between Senator McCain and Senator Obama visits Iraq, among other places. It's much easier to grasp the import and consequences of your actions when you've actually seen the country you're going to bomb or pacify or police or withdraw from, the Iraqis you're going to befriend or kill or enlist or abandon or empower, and the soldiers who are going to be risking their lives for the cause.
Finally, a word about the politics of all this: Matt says that "active duty generals are hard surrogates for Obama to push back against." One effective way to push back would be to say, "When I went to Iraq, I asked my military guides to show me the very same place you are talking about. Here is the lesson I gleaned from talking to the people I met there." The more I think about it, the more I conclude that Obama and the country will be better insofar as he makes a couple productive trips to Iraq.
The example from your personal life is valid, I'm sure. But no president (or presidential candidate) is going to move to Baghdad for six months. At most they will spend a few days touring Iraq and seeing what the US military and the Iraqi government want them to see. That's a very, very different thing, and a lot less informative.
Karl's comment is quite valid, but just to amplify one element of it: what you or I might learn from visiting Iraq for, say, a week, is much greater than what John McCain or Barack Obama will learn in a similar visit. We can wander around check it out for ourselves, and if we get kidnapped or killed, it's not a big deal. Well, it would be a big deal to me or you and our family and friends, but nobody else.
A major party presidential candidate, by contrast, has to travel in a security cocoon that makes it virtually impossible for him to learn anything. Both would be far better off sending trusted agents to go and report, rather than going themselves.
The point of visiting is that you get a tour of important areas coupled with in-person briefings by the officers and troops on the ground, plus the chance to talk to some actual Iraqis. As it is now, all Obama knows is what he reads in the papers plus whatever he got during a single Senate hearing where General Petraeus was being grilled in order to score political points in the media rather than to gain information or understanding.
McCain has had a full career in the Navy, including graduating from the National War College, and has talked extensively with the people who are prosecuting this war. If I knew nothing about the situation in Iraq and was looking for an expert to believe, there is no way I would select Obama at this point in time.
Talk to actual Iraqis? You are kidding right? Talking with hand picked Iraqi politicians is useless at best. Both Obama and McCain have to get their info secondhand. Obama, as a senator has the same sources available as McCain.
At this point we need political leadership, not military leadership. AQI has pretty much blown it in Iraq so we are mostly involved in settling clashes between Iraqi factions.
Steve
I'm pretty cynical about the ability of anyone who doesn't a) speak the language, and b) live there for 6 months or so to have any idea of What It's Really Like There.
Got to see this when living in Tokyo. Many many times I was the local sheepdog who look care of the Eminent VIP, picked him up at the airport, took care of his bags, took him around, translated for him, took him to all the Right Spots (including the obligatory trip down to Kyoto on the Shinkansen), visit with the bureaucrats, helped him get in front of the right TV crews, and then shepherded him back on his plane. Amazing the number of them who babbled to me on the way out about "having seen the real Japan!"
How delusional people can get. I salute Obama for not wishing to participate in something that would be nothing more than a silly dog-and-pony show using up US taxpayer money.
Let McCain pay for the costs of any trip (both his and Obama's) out of his own pocket.
If Obama won't get enough benefit from actually going to Iraq because he can't roam freely, couldn't he at least make time in his schedule to sit down and talk to General Petraeus the next time he's in town?
Perhaps the real problem is that facts on the ground don't fit with Obama's preferences, so he'd rather not hear it. He wants to talk about how he was supposedly right in his sporadic opposition to the war, years ago, without complicating things by admitting that McCain was right more recently about the Surge.
Visiting Iraq is essentially useless for these people. They would see the equivalent of the Sears Tower in Chicago, which is useless for telling you what is happening in this wonderful city.
The comical thing is that some people think that a visit would actually be accomplish anything, or that a discussion with General Petraeus would be informative, and not propaganda.
The surge: A propaganda piece that was designed to distract from the civil war that now is inevitable in Iraq. If we leave now, or in 3 years, the civil war will happen, surge or no surge. Can the people that support the surge really not see this? You really think a pacification that lasts less than decades is going to make a difference? Hell, Saddam had them completely under control for 25 years, and as soon as his iron thumb was lifted, the place exploded. What makes you think that a few years or even a decade of U.S. occupation is going to make any difference?
When there is no clear path to widely accepted legitimacy, force is the only path to legitimacy.
This whole idea is an exercise in "my bitchery". It's paternalistic for McCain to urge Obama to go visit Iraq now, and at his urging.
There are a lot of problems in the world: N. Korea, Iran, Syria-Hizbollah-Hamas-Palistinian-Israel, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan.
Maybe Obama should visit them all? And at McCain's urging? Ridiculous. And any visit to Iraq would not be helpful. Imagine this... the Bush Administration (and I like Bush) has had the pulse of the Iraqi situation (with visits, briefings, contact with generals) and the situation is still relatively screwed up.
This is McCain trying to look like the more experienced elder statesment.
What next. Will McCain ask Obama to jump off a cliff? Should he do it?
I don't recall many people, Obama included, maintaining the surge wouldn't work. Obviously sending in more troops will have the effect of more success on the ground. The point was that it would do next to nothing for the long term viability of Iraq because of the political, sectarian, and ethnic factions in that country - on that point at least not a lot has changed.
you need to look up the data not wander around.
How do you know the data is accurate?
You should go yourself, and you should send agents you trust more often and more widely.
The belief that all wisdom and knowledge is contained in subordinates reports is what left Washington conviced that sucess in Vietnam was just around the corner at least until 1968.
You're actually trying to draw a comparison to visiting a war zone to living in Seville?
The usefulness of going to Iraq would obviously not be in sight-seeing but in meeting with U.S. and Iraqi military leaders and Iraqi political leaders.
Which I suspect that Obama is very reluctant to do because he's going to hear a lot that contradicts his stated positions that A) The war is lost, and B) The best course of action is immediate withdrawal.
That the war is not lost is becoming too obvious to ignore. And that the Iraqi political leadership do not want the U.S. to pull out completely ASAP would be made very plain in his discussions with them. He would have to come back and say, "All those American and Iraqi officers and all those Iraqi politicians -- they don't know what they're talking about". Much easier for Obama to ignore their information, opinions, and plans if he avoids facing them in person.