McCain's Consistent Folly on Iraq
On the campaign trail, John McCain has retreated on immigration, changed his mind on tax cuts and admitted economics is not his strong suit. But all that's unimportant, we are told, because he was Right On Iraq -- back at the beginning, when he endorsed the invasion, and again over the past year, when he has stoutly supported the surge. So, whichever Democrat he faces, the November election could be a referendum on the Iraq war and his support for it.Yes indeed, John McCain has been consistent on Iraq - consistently wrong. And about that surge:
If so, that may not be a plus for McCain. McCain has been consistent about Iraq, in the sense of being consistently wrong. If the American people get a long look at what he's said and a clear picture of our fortunes in Iraq, he may yearn for the days when he was being pilloried for offering "amnesty" to illegal immigrants.
McCain portrays himself as uniquely clear-eyed about the war. In fact, those eyes have often been full of stars. When Army Gen. Eric Shinseki forecast that more troops would be needed for the occupation, McCain didn't fret. Shortly before the invasion, he said, "I have no qualms about our strategic plans." As the online magazine Salon reports, he predicted the war would be "another chapter in the glorious history of the United States of America."
The point of the surge was to catalyze rapid progress that would facilitate our departure. But now the Pentagon says that come July, we’ll still have more troops than the 132,000 we had before. When Lt. Gen. Carter Ham was asked if the number will fall below 132,000 by the time Bush leaves office, he replied, “It would be premature to say that.”Over at Cato At Liberty Justin Logan has more.
McCain says the current “strategy is succeeding in Iraq.” His apparent definition of success is that American forces will stay on in huge numbers as long as necessary to keep violence within acceptable limits. We were told we had to increase our numbers so we could leave. Turns out we had to increase our numbers so we could stay.
Five years after the Iraq invasion, we’ve suffered more than 30,000 dead and wounded troops, incurred trillions in costs and found that Iraqis are unwilling to overcome their most basic divisions. And no end is in sight. If you’re grateful for that, thank John McCain.
As has always been the case, men like John McCain define leaving as losing and staying as success. If we stay in Iraq for 100 years, that’s “success.” If we leave, ever, we’ve lost.Iraq remains a powder keg with a very short fuse. The surge added a longer fuse but put more powder in the keg at the same time. The odds our that keg is going to blow up in St John's face before November.
I’d only add to Chapman’s column that, before the war, media darling St. John of Arizona was one of the most naive proponents of the “greeted as liberators” school of thought, assuring Larry King on September 24, 2002 that “I believe that the success will be fairly easy.” Five days later, McCain was back on CNN, assuring the American people that “I believe that the United States military capabilities are such that we can win a victory in a relatively short time. And I, again, I don’t think it’s, quote, ‘easy,’ but I believe that we can win an overwhelming victory in a very short period of time.” And so forth.
