Until this week, when Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, offered a sensible and comprehensive blueprint for dealing with the mess that President Bush created by bungling the war of necessity against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which could have made Americans safer, and starting a war of choice in Iraq, which made the world more insecure.

Mr. Obama's Republican rival, Senator John McCain, is no longer able to ignore the situation on the Afghan-Pakistan border, where Al Qaeda and the Taliban — the true threats to American security — are resurgent. But he has not matched Mr. Obama's seriousness on Iraq. Mr. McCain is still tied in knots, largely adopting Mr. Bush's blind defense of an unending conflict.

Mr. Obama has a better grasp of the big picture, despite Mr. McCain's claim to more foreign policy experience. For far too long, Mr. Bush's preoccupation with his misadventure in Iraq — which fostered a presence for Al Qaeda where there was none — has dangerously diverted precious manpower, resources and high-level attention from Afghanistan and Pakistan. As Mr. Obama correctly asserted in an Op-Ed article in The Times on Monday and in a speech on Tuesday, those countries, not Iraq, are the real frontline of the war against terrorism.

(NY Times Editorial)