Redstate

al Qaeda will consolidate itself in an anarchic Iraq and use it as a staging ground for the next terrifying attack on the United States and on American interests--think Afghanistan in the run-up to 9/11

You mean the way the Taliban have rebuilt themselves in Afghanistan?

Pejman, I am not defending Andrew's assertion about McCain (if anything, the opposite seems more likely, that Obama will not withdaw from Iraq, nor would any Democratic president). However, your statement that

al Qaeda will consolidate itself in an anarchic Iraq and use it as a staging ground for the next terrifying attack on the United States and on American interests--think Afghanistan in the run-up to 9/11

is simply misinformed. No one who reads Michael Yon or Michael Totten on a regular basis will believe that Al Qaeda will ever be able to reconstitute itself in Iraq, not with the infrastructure (weak and fledgling though it remains at present) of the Iraqi forces and the tribes. Whatever leverage AQ-Iraq had in the past has been squandered and they are hated fiercely. Iraq is closed to Al Qaeda.

Afghanistan is another matter, and there is where the danger of a reconstituted AQ indeed lies, which is why our losing the war there in slow motion (as Yon has powerfully argued) is now our more pressing concern. On that score, I think Obama does indeed outperform McCain (who is too Iraq-centric), though thats a debate for later.

--
Dean Nation is now Nation-Building: Purple politics, muscular liberalism, principled pragmatism

This is from Obama's website:

The Surge: The goal of the surge was to create space for Iraq's political leaders to reach an agreement to end Iraq's civil war. At great cost, our troops have helped reduce violence in some areas of Iraq, but even those reductions do not get us below the unsustainable levels of violence of mid-2006. Moreover, Iraq's political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war.

Military Strain: The military is being severely strained by repeated and lengthy deployments. The Army and Marine Corps are facing a crisis as 40 percent of their equipment is either in Iraq or being repaired. This crisis has led many of our generals to conclude that current demands make our forces unable to rapidly respond to the contingencies we may face in the future.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/

So he doesn't think the surge has worked.

Additionally, a good part for why it is believed the surge reduced violence in Baghdad was actually not the surge itself, but in reality was the 6 month ceasefire that Sadr committed to, which will expire the end of this month. Presently, he under a great deal of pressure to not extend it.