It is, of course, a long way to the actual presidential election in November, and even to the two party conventions this summer which will ratify the decisions made by voters during the primary campaigns. Nevertheless, a prediction we made in these columns several weeks ago is already coming to pass: The fiasco caused by the Bush administration's policies in Iraq has backfired already to transform the U.S. domestic political scene.
It is too early to know what Sen. Obama would do if elected president and a certain caveat of caution should be offered. His comments about sending U.S. military forces into Pakistan -- hastily backtracked upon after he offered them -- were an alarming example of what the lack of experience in foreign policy can mean.
Also, when quizzed on Iraq, Obama has bent over backwards to avoid committing himself to any set date or timetable for a full withdrawal of U.S. troops. Washington insiders say this is because he has been briefed on confidential CIA assessments about the likelihood of an Iranian or radical Islamist al-Qaida-type takeover of Iraq and the inadequacies of the present government to stop it if all the troops are removed. In any case, Obama's public position on troop withdrawals from Iraq is virtually indistinguishable from that of Sen. Hillary Clinton.
The American public, however, especially the democratic grassroots constituency, sees a dramatic difference between the Iraq and Middle East positions of Clinton and Obama, and they may not be wrong to do so. Obama, even as a still humble, though far from obscure, state senator back in Illinois, opposed launching the Iraq war and was critical of it from the outset. Sen. Clinton, in what is now widely seen as an ill-judged move, voted to give President George W. Bush the authority he quickly used to launch the war. Nor can there have been any doubt at the time that, if given that authority by Congress, this was exactly what Bush was going to do.
Developments in Iraq could yet play into Obama's hands during the coming campaign, especially against Sen. McCain. McCain was a strong advocate of the "surge' policy and its current perceived success played a significant role in his remarkable comeback. But if anything goes really wrong in Iraq before November, such setbacks developments seem more likely to play into Obama's hands than McCain's.
The venerable U.S. policy consensus on the Middle East has now been broken. Whatever the outcome of the November presidential election, the long term strategic consequences of that change are likely to be lasting and profound for all the players in the region.