McCain was against a long-term presence in Iraq before he was for it (more than once)
John McCain’s stated position, repeated over and over again throughout the campaign, is that he’s willing to leave U.S. troops in Iraq up to a century, so long as we’re not taking major casualties. He compares this to a presence along the lines of U.S. troops who remain in Korea a half-century after the war there.
There’s no shortage of problems associated with such an approach. First, it’s based on truly ridiculous assumptions. Second, it wouldn’t work. And third, as Sam Stein reminds us, McCain has frequently disagreed with his own vision.
Three years before the Arizona Republican argued on the campaign trail that U.S. forces could be in Iraq for 100 years in the absence of violence, he decried the very concept of a long-term troop presence.
In fact, when asked specifically if he thought the U.S. military should set up shop in Iraq along the lines of what has been established in post-WWII Germany or Japan — something McCain has repeatedly advocated during the campaign — the senator offered nothing short of a categorical “no.”
“I would hope that we could bring them all home,” he said on MSNBC. “I would hope that we would probably leave some military advisers, as we have in other countries, to help them with their training and equipment and that kind of stuff.”
Host Chris Matthews pressed McCain on the issue. “You’ve heard the ideological argument to keep U.S. forces in the Middle East. I’ve heard it from the hawks. They say, keep United States military presence in the Middle East, like we have with the 7th Fleet in Asia. We have the German…the South Korean component. Do you think we could get along without it?”
McCain held fast, rejecting the very policy he urges today. “I not only think we could get along without it, but I think one of our big problems has been the fact that many Iraqis resent American military presence,” he responded. “And I don’t pretend to know exactly Iraqi public opinion. But as soon as we can reduce our visibility as much as possible, the better I think it is going to be.”
Keep in mind, McCain 2008 believes those of us who agree with McCain 2005 are terrorist-sympathizing defeatists.
I’d just add that the “evolution” of McCain’s thinking on a permanent U.S. troop presence in Iraq has taken a surprising number of twists and turns.
Consider:
* In 2005, McCain decided Iraqis resent our military presence, so we should reject a Korea-like model for long-term troop deployment. He insisted that “U.S. ‘visibility’ was detrimental to the Iraq mission and that Iraqis were responding negatively to America’s presence — positions held by both Obama and Clinton.”
* In 2006, McCain reversed course, and embraced the Korea model for a long-term military presence.
* In 2007, McCain reversed course again, saying the Korean analogy doesn’t work and shouldn’t be followed. “[E]ventually I think because of the nature of the society in Iraq and the religious aspects of it that America eventually withdraws,” McCain told Charlie Rose last fall.
* And in 2008, McCain reversed course yet again, deciding that we should be prepared to leave troops in Iraq, even if it means 100 years or more.
At each step, McCain was not only convinced that he was absolutely right, but dismissed anyone who dared to disagree with him as uninformed and unreliable.
Now, I should clarify that the point here is not just to embarrass McCain by exposing a spectacular series of flip-flops. Rather, the point is to highlight the fact that McCain apparently doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about. He does 180-degree turns without explanation, and then insists that he’s been consistent the entire time.
Noting McCain’s wholesale reversals on tax policies over the last 10 years, Josh Marshall mentioned the other day:
Genuine political and ideological transformations are pretty rare in contemporary American politics. Two in a row in less than a decade is close to unprecedented. McCain went from conservative Republican, to embracing many core Democratic policy positions and actively discussing a possible party switch, to cycling back and re-embracing the same policies.
What’s gotten the most attention is McCain’s position on taxes — the same Bush tax cuts that he said earlier in the decade “offend[ed] his conscience”, he now says must be made permanent and added on to by another round of tax cuts on the Bush model. This can be reduced down to cheap charges of ‘flip-flopping’ or expediency. But it actually goes a lot deeper than that. McCain is absolutely gung-ho and certain that he’s right about whatever his position and ‘principles’ are at the given moment. But they change repeatedly.
On taxes, McCain changed his mind four times in 10 years. On long-term troop presence in Iraq, McCain changed his mind four times in four years.
Remind us again, campaign reporters, about McCain’s “consistency” and “straight talk.”
Who, exactly, would the US troops be protecting the Iraqis from?
Themselves?
Yeah, ask the British how that worked out for them back in the 1920s.
The DNC needs to run a series of spots similar to the 100 years in Iraq ad, each spot emphasizing a single McCain brain fart. Each ad must be accurate and focus on only his worst position on any given topic. Let his campaign spin thru his flip flops on their own dime. The DNC should run the entire series of ads under a message multiplier tag line to catapult the propaganda; something like “Americans can’t afford another 4 years on the wrong track”. It’s the theme that just keeps giving.
wow, for a maverick he sure seems indecisive and wishy-washy. One might be tempted to say weak & spineless. And this is just when talking to potential voters and the media. That bastard will cave like an unmonitored coal mine in the hands of an actual crisis.
Good thing we’re not dealing with any actual crises right now.
Oh…yeah…
Now, I should clarify that the point here is not just to embarrass McCain by exposing a spectacular series of flip-flops.
You say that like it is a bad thing;>
Rather, the point is to highlight the fact that McCain apparently doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about. He does 180-degree turns without explanation, and then insists that he’s been consistent the entire time.
Which would be embarrassing to me, why not McCain?
“He’s willing to leave U.S. troops in Iraq up to a century, so long as we’re not taking major casualties.”
I’d like to hear John parse what number of dead troops is not “major.” If only the media had the balls or integrity to ask.
To the families of the dead, every casualty is major. Kerry famously said “who wants to be the last soldier to die for a mistake?” McCain is asking who wants to be the last soldier to die before casualties are major enough to prevent even more troops from dying?
This is slightly OT, though it ties into The Corkscrew Express’s ability to hold and argue for two contradictory proposals at once. Apparently this last week has finally brought the Hagee endorsement into focus — though calling Hagee “McCain’s Wright” isn’t the best way. (There is a beautiful group of links at
http://www.jewsonfirst.org/christian_zionists.php#hagee_endorse — and JewsOnFirst is an organization that should be getting more attention, btw. They do some good work.)
According to ABC News’ Mary Bruce:
(I should have waited for today’s open thread to include this, but my schedule is erratic enough i can never be sure of having computer time at the right time.)
I don’t think we an expect the MSM to attack McCain in the same way they are attacking Obama, because they and their corporate owners love McCain. He gives them barbecue, and is a great good old boy.
Obama is asking some hard questions and he will expect changes if he wins. They are in the cat-bird seat so why would they want any change?
This whole Reverend Wright thing is so over the top; it is as though none of these people have ever been to a black church before, or heard anything about Liberation Theology. None of this is new information. They like to sanitize and compartmentalise the rhetoric of Martin Luther King, but they would do well to read some of his speeches and really look at his life and work
The key is asking John McCan’t how long we have to stay in this insurgency mode in Iraq before we get to the Korea Model, and how many more dead Americans he’s willing to tolerate to achieve that.
Because when you get down to it, there are two types of Iraqis. The ones who kill Americans day and night…
.. and the ones who kill Americans only after sunset.