Advisors say Obama doesn’t size up to McCain on Afghanistan

Experts discussed the Afghanistan policies of Barack Obama and John McCain during a conference call. Following Obama’s recent foreign policy speech, the experts referred his record on the Afghanistan issue.

Rep. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said that McCain was able to come up with a strategy in Iraq that worked. Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy advisor for the McCain Campaign, questioned the timing of Obama’s foreign policy speech. Scheunemann noted that it is strange for Obama to discuss Middle East foreign policy when the senator has not visited Iraq in 900 days, has never been to Afghanistan, or met privately with Gen. David Petraeus.

Kori Schake, another senior foreign policy advisor for McCain, outlined McCain’s strategy in Afghanistan. McCain will work with allies to make sure their is unity of leadership, appoint an Afghanistani official to better organize U.S. policy, and increase the amounts of troops by three brigades, Schake said. Two brigades would be for combat and one would be for training, Scheunemann said. McCain will also increase non-military assistance, such as counter narcotics strategy and regional diplomatic issues.

Scheunemann said Obama contradicted himself when he said that 10,000 to 20,000 additional troops would make no significant difference back in 2007, but then, in January 2008, argued that he said more troops would be beneficial. Obama has a commitment to leave Iraq, but not to win, Scheunemann said. Obama, as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, chose to cut off funding for Afghanistan despite never holding a hearing about it.