From The Seattle Times
By Evan Maher

National security is supposed to be the Republicans’ strength. That has not been the case in recent years as the Republicans have stumbled into one mess after another. These missteps have provided Sen. Barack Obama an opportunity to make national security his issue.

Public polling shows that Democrats have suffered from a “national-security deficit” for decades. The two basic Democratic approaches to this deficit — pivot to domestic policy or parrot GOP toughness — have failed to reassure the American people.

But eight years of George W. Bush’s foreign policy have weakened the Republicans’ claim to national-security competence. Obama seems to recognize this and has not shied away from a vigorous debate about foreign affairs.

Coming from the party less trusted on security and unable to rely on meaty foreign-policy credentials, Obama’s policies have to be twice as smart. Ironically, it is this supposed foreign-policy lightweight whose ideas are gaining the most traction around the world.

Calling the Iraq invasion a strategic blunder in 2002 was prescient, but it is Obama’s 2008 strategy to end the war in Iraq that should matter most to voters.

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