Arguably the most politically significant aspect to today’s Senate testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker is the campaign angle — John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama will all get a chance to question Petraeus and Crocker directly.
But McCain is drawing interest this morning for what appears to be yet another in a series of mistakes about the basics of events in the Middle East.
For those who can’t watch clips online, McCain asks Petraeus, “Do you still view al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat?” The general responded, “It is still a major threat, though it is certainly not as major a threat as it was say 15 months ago.” McCain added, “Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shi’ites all overall?” Petraeus answered, “No,” though McCain quickly added, “Or Sunnis or anybody else.”
I’ve watched the exchange a few times, and I keep coming to the same conclusion: by rhetorically asking if al Qaeda is a Shiite sect, McCain was once again demonstrating that he’s confused about the terrorist group’s religious background. He added, “Or Sunnis or anybody else,” not to necessarily to clarify, but to cover his bases — he figures al Qaeda has to be affiliated with an Islamic tradition, even if he doesn’t know which one.
Ilan Goldenberg added, “McCain did genuinely mix up Sunnis and Shi’a again…. Now, I know that there is a bit of gotcha going on here. But this man claims that his greatest qualification for the Presidency is that he understands foreign policy. But the differences between Sunni and Shi’a matter. They matter a lot! And this nasty habit of mixing it up just seriously needs to stop.”
Indeed, I’d say it’s the “nasty habit” that makes this morning’s mix-up especially interesting. If McCain had consistently demonstrated a firm grasp of events in the Middle East, it’d be easier to overlook confusion over whether al Qaeda is Sunni or Shi’ia.
But therein lies the point — McCain has struggled with this before.
* On Feb. 28, McCain told the Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston, Texas, “Al Qaeda is there [in Iraq], they are functioning, they are supported in many times, in many ways by the Iranians.”
* On March 17, McCain appeared on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show and said, “There are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran and given training as leaders and they’re moving back into Iraq.”
* On March 18, McCain held a press conference in Jordan in which he repeated the same claim, twice, including his insistence that it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known.”
Eventually, McCain backpedalled, but only after Joe Lieberman whispered in his ear that he was wrong. Asked why he would repeatedly insist that Sunni al Qaeda was benefitting from training from Shiite Iran, McCain would only say he “misspoke.”
Complicating matters, McCain also appeared confused last week about events in Basra.
As recently as November 2006, McCain couldn’t even talk about his own opinions on the war without reading prepared notes on national television. As recently as March 2007, McCain was embarrassing himself by insisting that Gen. Petraeus travels around Baghdad “in a non-armed Humvee” (a comment that military leaders literally laughed at, and which CNN’s Michael Ware responded to by saying McCain’s credibility “has now been left out hanging to dry.”)
Add up the errors, and we see a Republican candidate whose problem is not with words but with facts.