Let me be totally clear: Foreign affairs ain't my thing.  I know it's, like, soooooo enormous that Obama took a detour from his European World Tour to go to Iraq, but the details and nuances of the Middle East hurt my tiny, supermodel brain. In any event, it's pretty major, I guess.  So I thought I would take a brief moment and compare two receptions Obama has received in front of the military recently.  One photo is propagated on the internets by right wing looney tunes and the other is taken by the AP yesterday.

[caption id="attachment_4365" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Obama meets Marines in December 2008"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_4363" align="aligncenter" width="512" caption="Obama visits Iraq soldiers in April 2009"][/caption]

This first photo provided the right wing lots of fun opportunity over the holidays to say "See!  This is how the military really feels about Obama."  Nothing would provide the right wing more lift going into 2012 than having more and more of those images come out as the Iraq war plods on and the Afghanistan war beefs up.

Political hackers like me believe two interconnected things about Obama's win over the inevitable Hillary machine last year:  1) Obama was strongly against the Iraq war while Hillary authorized the use of force AND 2) Hillary's machine took the power of the caucuses—where the Democratic base (pissed off about the war) shows up—for granted. Obama did not.  If you believe those two points are critical to why Obama is in the White House, read further. If not, well then I am sure there is a really good Vin Diesel movie you could watch right now.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are critical to Obama's re-election.  Oh yeah, the economy could use some stabilizing, but that's a whole other riff.  Obama needs to successfully end the war in Iraq and transfer sovereignty over to the Iraqi government.  The sooner, the better as Americans aren't known much for their patience.

Additionally, he needs to bring the 'Afghan situation' under control (oh and it would nice to find Osama bin Laden one of these decades). Anything less will be a monumental failure, and in my estimate, worse than failing to re-stabilize our economy. A successful campaign strategy involves: Convincing your base of support they should be excited and rabid about you; convincing swing voters to vote your way as opposed to the other guy; and NOT activating your opposition's base of support.

If you believe that one of the central reasons Obama won the election was tied to Iraq and then he fails to deliver on it, he will not only get hammered by the opposition in efforts to win over swing voters, he also will lose part of his base—likely the most energized parts of anti-war voters.  The anti-war base was energized to get Obama elected and Obama did a good job of convincing otherwise swing voters that switching from a pro-war President to an anti-war President during war time was a good idea.  Fairly remarkable. Absent a successful Iraq and Afghanistan plan, he will lose all those swing voters and disillusion a large part of his base. Not good for re-election.

But don't despair!  Look at the 2nd photo above!  One of the first steps to a successful Iraq and Afghanistan plan is selling it to an impatient American public. A photo showing an enthuastic military helps. This is good. Thank you, AP.