Jessica McBride (among others) is commenting on the apparent hypocrisy of Obama for wanting to invade Pakistan, and Edwards for wanting to crack down on Saudi Arabia.  I'm not surprised by this at all.  In fact, I predicted it would happen back in May and wrote a rather long post on the subject:

In the second presidential debate against Al Gore, Bush declared "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building".  In fact, that was a major campaign point.  He blasted Clinton and Gore for their intervention in Somalia and the Balkans.  And many Republicans backed him up, saying it was time for the United States to pull back away from being the "World's Policeman".  Ask anyone on the street today, and how many people would remember that at all?

My point is this.  When a Democrat is President, the Republicans blast the wars they participate in as ill timed and poorly managed.  Anyone who disagrees needs to look back at how Newt Gingrich's Congress went after Clinton for Somalia and Kosovo before you comment.  And now when a Republican is in charge, the Democrats are doing the same thing.

But is there really any doubt that if a Democrat were to win next year that s/he wouldn't be just as much of an interventionist as every other President in history when push comes to shove?  That power to fight a war is a lot different when you're in charge, and not just watching from the sidelines.  So while some of the nutty folks at Reason are saying that you should vote Democrat in order to avoid more war, I'm saying that any Democrat who becomes President will be just as likely to go to war as any Republican.  Republicans are just more up front about it.

This has been going on since Presidential politics began.  The current president's war was wrong and mismanaged, but mine will be so much better.  In fact, given the tone and talk of Kerry's campaign... this was a forgone conclusion.  Kerry's campaign focused on why the decision to go to war in Iraq was wrong, as if the decision was yet to be made, instead of focusing on how he would improve things in Iraq or change course.  The Democrat's learned their lesson.

The Democrat's playbook is clear.  Iraq is "Bush's War", and as much as possible will be "The Republican's War" to hurt Rudy, Thompson², McCain (is he still running?) and the rest (except Ron Paul).  But in order to look strong on the War on Terror, they will have to find a war of their very own.  Obama is picking on Pakistan and Edwards is picking Saudi Arabia.  Iran is too closely tied to Iraq to be a good target, so they're avoiding it.  It will be interesting to see who attracts the ire of Mrs. Clinton.