I respond to

This

You can almost hum a tune to the "on the one hand - on the other hand" construction of the story. I suppose that's to be expected however.

The best part:

Orwellian newspeak of the White House, "joint aspirational time horizons"
I'm almost willing to try and take credit for highlighting the absurdity of those word choices.

the worst part:

For McCain, the first priority remains a stable Iraqi nation state, and he is willing to risk ever more American blood and treasure over the coming years in that quest. For Obama, the first priority is an exit from the country, and he is willing to risk civil chaos in Iraq and a loss of American influence in the region.

Again that's an example of the conventional wisdom driving your writing but its basicly claptrap.

For McCain the first priority remains having a large strike force available in the region to be able to protect Oil assets and infrastructure from being utilized in ways unfavorable to US interests. (Note that I'm using the phrase 'US interests" in the standard Republican business friendly manner)
For Obama the first priority is to actually be able to claim that he acted against the real terrorists and was able to defang Al Qaeda as a danger to the US without having to enlarge the US Military sector further in order to accomplish it.

See how I can manage describing the same situation that you are without the "McCain's motives are noble and Obama's are risky" undercurrent that infuses the above sentence.

Think about it.....