Via Foxnews.com

McCain invites Obama to visit post-surge Iraq
by Mosheh Oinounou
ALBUQUERQUE, NM — It’s been nearly 29 months since Sen. Barack Obama made his first and only visit to Iraq and the McCain campaign believes that their likely Democratic rival needs to take a second look.

“Senator Obama keeps talking about an immediate withdrawal as soon as he gets to be president. The last time I understand he was in Iraq was in 2006. I would recommend that he go back. So much has happened since 2006 on the ground. It’s been extraordinary,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close McCain ally, told CBS Face the Nation yesterday. “I think if he would look at what’s happened in Iraq, talk to General Petraeus and (Prime Minister) Maliki, I think he would have a different view of what you need to do next.”

Graham even went so far as to invite Obama–who was last in Iraq in January 2006 as sectarian violence was raging and a year before the surge was implemented–to join McCain for a joint trip.

While the chances of seeing Obama and McCain grab a falafel together in a Baghdad market any time soon is very unlikely, the McCain campaign plans to push Obama’s lack of recent on the ground experience this week. The campaign sees this as another way to paint Obama as weak and inexperienced on foreign policy issues and argue that Obama’s call for a troop withdrawal is not backed up the most recent facts on the ground.

In contrast with Obama, McCain has flown to Iraq eight times since 2003, most recently visiting the country in March.