McCain (and Petraeus) Know Best

21.07.2008

Here's the key exchange from McCain's interview this morning on NBC's "Today":

Vieira: "Senator Obama's timetable of removing U.S. troops from Iraq within that 16-month period seemed to be getting a thumbs up by the Iraqi prime minister when he called it 'the right timeframe for a withdrawal.' He has backed off that somewhat, but the Iraqis have not stopped using the word timetable, so if the Iraqi government were to say -- if you were President -- we want a timetable for troops being to removed, would you agree with that?"
McCain: "I have been there too many times. I've met too many times with him, and I know what they want. They want it based on conditions and of course they would like to have us out, that's what happens when you win wars, you leave. We may have a residual presence there as even Senator Obama has admitted. But the fact is that it should be -- the agreement between Prime Minister Maliki, the Iraqi government and the United states is it will be based on conditions. This is a great success, but it's fragile, and could be reversed very easily. I think we should trust the word of General Petraeus who has orchestrated this dramatic turnaround. And by the way, we would have been out last march if Senator Obama's original wish would have been called for. Not 16 months from now, but last March. He was wrong on the surge, he was wrong today when he says it didn't succeed. And obviously we have challenges in Afghanistan which will require more troops and more NATO participation, but we can win. If we had lost in Iraq, we would have risked a much wider war that would have put enormous challenges and burdens on our military." [Emphasis added.]

So, basically, the new McCain position on withdrawal seems to be: we shouldn't listen to what the Iraqi government says it wants, we should listen to what McCain says it wants. And, oh yeah, we should listen to Petraeus, too. Mike's counterintuitive point about the long-term impact of Maliki's statement aside, I think that's going to be a tough position for McCain to sustain for the next three months.

--Jason Zengerle

Posted: Monday, July 21, 2008 9:24 AM with 7 comment(s)

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scire said:

it's a nakedly imperialist stance. Not such a good idea for McCain to express. Americans tend not to like imperialism.

And I've never understood -- what exactly is it we're winning? We've helped set up a democratic government which has begun to let us know it now wants us to let it govern itself, and he still talks about "winning."

And since when have generals dictated our foreign policy?

The sign that McCain is too old to run this country has nothing to do with his chronological age. It has to do with the fact that the guy has lost the ability to bend. Inflexibility is what got us into this mess.

July 21, 2008 10:17 AM

icarusr said:

"I have been there too many times. I've met too many times with him, and I know what they want."

"Too many times"? Freudian slip about having to meet, and potentially pay attention to, the leader of a client/occupied state? Scire, I think you're right about the Imperialist talk - I am not sure, however, if most Americans would bridle at this ...

July 21, 2008 10:37 AM

AlanSP said:

"And by the way, we would have been out last march if Senator Obama's original wish would have been called for. Not 16 months from now, but last March."

This is a bad thing? Honestly, I could imagine an Obama surrogate saying this. People *want* to get out. What they don't want is utter chaos in the region when we finally do get out. If McCain is trying to use Obama's 2006 support for withdrawal against him, he should be saying that we wouldn't have made the progress we've made, or that the situation in Iraq would be far worse today if we'd followed Obama's advice. Something like that. Politically, the last thing he should be saying is that if we followed Obama's advice, the war would have been over more than a year ago.

July 21, 2008 1:08 PM

jyunis said:

One thing I really cannot stand with McCain is the way he has co-opted General Petraeus for himself and his own ideological ends. Everywhere he goes its "we should all listen to General Petraeus, the greatest general ever!" Now, don't get me wrong, I love Petraeus as much as the next guy, but he implements tactics. He does not make policy. John McCain loves to abdicate his own authority as a Senator, and policy-maker, and hand it over to General Petraeus, as though he were somehow elected office and told to make policy. Of course, McCain employs this trick to serve his own ends of never setting an objective in Iraq, lest it come to the point that one day we might have to leave.

July 21, 2008 1:43 PM

dbhuff said:

Why is Patreus setting policy again? Isn't that the job of, oh, I don't know, an elected official like maybe the President?

July 21, 2008 2:41 PM

Rhubarbs said:

Ah, but think of how much easier McCain can make things here. The legal grounds for keeping U.S. forces in Iraq is about the expire, making our presence in the country a crime (technically, an actual domestic crime under U.S. law, since the Constitution makes international agreements the supreme law of the land alongside actual federal statutes), and the Iraqi government is refusing to negotiate a bilateral status-of-forces agreement to make continued U.S. presence in Iraq legal.

Solution: The United States should negotiate the new status-of-forces agreement with John McCain, who knows what the Iraqis really want.

July 21, 2008 2:47 PM

The Plank said:

The McCain campaign might want to be careful about its loud (though accurate) complaints about the disproportionate

July 23, 2008 12:49 PM