Iraq Itineraries

Sometime this month Barack Obama will probably become a pilgrim in Iraq. He won’t, of course, travel as a believer en route to enlightenment (although some might wish to paint it so), but as a candidate repeating the journey of his competitor, John McCain. Personally, I want to know what either man learned, or intends to learn, by traveling to the occupied lands. Steven Simon (“The Price of the Surge”, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008) made a convincing case that appearances are deceiving; that the Surge has allied itself with the insurgents against al Qaeda; and that the insurgents will emerge better prepared to carry on their civil war. Besides, what opportunity will they have to generate facts and interpretations for themselves?

These visits, though, lack any real engagement. McCain’s stroll through the Al-Sharqi market was chaperoned by such an extensive arsenal that McCain himself was effectively put in a bubble. Already the market is a highly transitory space, given meaning by the routine of incoming goods and customers. With “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead,” McCain’s visit may have been the perfect tourist experience: a safely regulated interaction with a fictitious place. And one should wonder what McCain could learn in his one-hour stroll. Marc Augé and Paul Virilio might say that McCain could only know Baghdad in terms of the brevity of passing through it. Was he even there long enough to learn what the price of milk was?

How unlikely it is that Obama will learn something. The trips is probably entirely political. As was McCain, Obama’s vision of Iraq will have been influenced by allies, right or wrong. If anything, it will end the silly counter that the GOP has on its website. Of course, Obama needs to show that he is at ease with foreign policy and security issues, and subsequent trips to other parts of the world may convince Americans that the World believes that Obama will repair the country’s global image. Unfortunately, Obama, surrounded by security, will be as close to experiencing the real Iraq as he would visiting Epcot.