McCain declares ‘we have succeeded’ in Iraq

July 18, 2008

Back in September, during a debate for the Republican presidential candidates, John McCain and Mitt Romney got into a bit of rhetorical tussle. Romney used a couple of phrases that McCain didn’t care for: “the surge is apparently working” and “if the surge is working.”

McCain snapped at Romney: “Governor, the surge is working. The surge is working, sir. It is working.” When Romney responded, “That’s just what I said,” McCain snapped again: “No, not apparently — it’s working.”

At the time, McCain wanted to pit present tense against future conditional tense. Now, McCain is so pleased with the war in Iraq, he’s prepared to start talking about it in the past tense.

Here’s a video of an informal press conference McCain held this yesterday morning in Michigan.

The audio is a little tough to hear, so to clarify, McCain insisted that “we have succeeded” in Iraq. In fact, he said it multiple times: “I am happy to stand in front of you to tell you that this strategy has succeeded. It has succeeded. It has succeeded.”

(It reminds me of the time Marge Simpson told Bart that Springfield is “a part of us all. A part of us all. A part of us all.” She then explained it would help him remember and believe the line if she repeated it this way.)

OK, McCain probably misspoke again. He must have meant that he thinks Bush’s strategy is “succeeding,” not has “succeeded.”

So McCain reiterated, just as he did with Romney in September.

McCain added on the campaign bus: “I repeat my statement that we have succeeded in Iraq — not we are succeeding — we have succeeded in Iraq.”

Gotcha. It’s over. We won. The policy worked — not is working, but worked. Good to know.

In a political context, McCain had a series of rhetorical options. He could say that we will succeed in Iraq, but Americans have grown impatient. He could say that we’re in the process of succeeding, but that’s not quite good enough, either. So, McCain just made up his mind — we’ve already succeeded. We may not know it, and this victory may be limited to McCain’s over-active imagination, but it happened. Just trust him and don’t ask any questions.

Can we get out of Iraq, then? Apparently not: “The success that we have achieved is still fragile and could be reversed.”

I have to say, I thought “success” was going to look a little more successful, but maybe that’s just me.

McCain, like Bush, considers this “mission accomplished.” I guess neither want to be taken especially seriously.

Well, major combat operations ended, what… 5 years ago? Not sure why we’re hanging around now (or for the next 100 years), other than to spray paint “USA WUZ HERE” on a few trucks and some walls, but yeah… we’ve succeeded…

As soon as the price of fuel comes down, we’ll get our troops back home.

  • “I’ve said it thrice; that makes it true.”

    McSame has been repeating a lot of things three times.

  • Candidate McCain’s unfolding insanity would make him the most dangerous man in the world should he ever be allowed to sit in the Oval Office.

  • I don’t think it counts as a success if you have to keep doing the things you’re doing now in order for it not to fall apart.

  • The ‘tense’ war McCain is fighting here is really an attempt to control the debate over the war. It’s an attempt to control the overall tone prior to debating face-to-face with Obama.

    I expect the corporate media to help McCain in the regard.

  • Succeeded. You keep usin’ that word. I do na’ think it means what you think it means.

  • McCain, “I am the PRESIDENT of the United States, I AM the President of the United States, I am the President of the United States!”

    Maybe he should help Bush find his magic wand.

    “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”

  • It’s not his fault being the toughest and the righest, he doesn’t even prepare!

  • Color me stunned…..NOT. This is a so stunningly obvious move.

    Bush & Co know that Iraq is a loosing argument for McCain so for there to be victory all they have to do is say there is (a compliant press and TV punditocracy will go along)! It magic….. Sort of like the creating their own reality a la Suskind’s article.

  • Over at TPM, Josh Marshall said Bush has basically declared victory in Iraq today and is going to bring home the troops (perhaps). The thing read to me more like mealy-mouthed weasel words trying to take Iraq off the table to disarm Obama. And after reading about McCain’s declaration yesterday, like more coordination between the WH and the Twisted talk Express.

  • He’s right. We have succeeded in Iraq. We have succeeded in turning what was once the cradle of civilization into a smouldering pile of bloody shit. Go U.S.A.!

  • Upon news that we have succeeded in Iraq, Duck Tape and Plastic Wrap futures nose-dived on Wall Street today.

  • Dee @ 11

    The thing read to me more like mealy-mouthed weasel words trying to take Iraq off the table to disarm Obama.

    Heh. If the right wants to keep taking issues off the table because they are better issues for Obama, they wont have much left to talk about by the conventions. Perhaps Bush would rather the race has to focus on the economy? (Bush to advisors: “Can we just declare victory on the economy? Say its a success and then complain if Obama keeps talking about it?”)

    And when I said yesterday that Steve has been at his witty best, this is what I was talkin’ about:

    I have to say, I thought “success” was going to look a little more successful, but maybe that’s just me.

    Good thing I hadn’t refilled my coffee yet.

  • This really isn’t much different than what the entire Wingnut Brigade has been saying for a while now when it comes to pulling out our troops:

    If things are going poorly: “We must stay until the get better!”

    If things are going well: “We must stay to keep things better!”

    No matter what happens, we stay. Apparently forever.

    Nothing’s new, except the tense being used.

  • Ten years from now (if he lives that long), McCain will switch tenses once again: “We WOULD HAVE succeeded in Iraq, but the new liberal leadership decided to cut and run when the victory was in our grasp.”

    Or perhaps he’d be found in a padded cell rocking back and forth and repeating “we have succeeded, we have succeeded, we have succeeded.” I sincerely hope (and am pretty sure) that there are a dozen aides in the Obama campaign who are lovingly saving and storing these wonderful interviews. The attack ads are writing themselves.

  • If he says it three times, does he have to retract his words three times next week?

  • McCain recently said he “knew how to win a war.” I guess this is how it’s done. Simply declare success! Someone should really ask him how spending 5 years in a North Vietnamese prison camp helped teach him how to “win a war.” (P.S. John, we lost that war).

  • Can we get out of Iraq, then? Apparently not…

    Funny how that works. No matter what happens, no matter what you call it, the results are exactly the same – kind of like McSame’s policy.

  • If he says it three times, does he have to retract his words three times next week?

    He’s John McCain. He doesn’t have to retract his words ever, at least according to his “base”, the media.

    Ah, the media: We won’t cover it because noone cares // No one cares because we won’t cover it.

  • The average American really really really wants to hear that we’ve been successful in Iraq. Regardless of how we felt about the initial invasion, many of us will not be comfortable leaving Iraq in a worse mess than when we invaded, and no American likes to think that their country abandoned a commitment. Therefore I expect truly stunning levels of wishful thinking and cognitive dissonance as people swing into line behind McCain’s new position.

    The Iraqi government says that they don’t want us there, which is a good enough excuse to cut and run if you want one. As has always been the case, the people who benefitted most from our invasion and occupation are the fundamentalist islamicists, especially Al Qaida, as we took down the only secular state in the region, outraged religious sensitivities, made it impossible to be a moderate Muslim, and blemished our alternative of democracy and civil rights. Iran will also benefit considerably from a weakened and divided neighbor. Al Qaida might increase bombings to try to entangle us in Iraq a little longer, and to goad us into additional repressive actions, but my guess is that Iran would probably try to calm things down for a while so that we leave quickly, and then they can work on supporting Iraqi shiites.

  • Okay, the surge had better have succeeded, because it happens to be over. If it didn’t succeed then JSMcC*nt has been lying to the American people for over a year (something can’t have been succeeding and then turn out to have failed when it was over).

    Of course, JSMcC*nt, being senile, is getting his talking points confused. The surge succeeding does not imply that the war has succeeded. Unless JSMcC*nt is throwing General Petraus under the bus, we are supposed to stop troop reductions in Iraq (where the number is 15,000 more than before the surge) for a few months to see if the insurgency is going to stay tamped down.

    Of course, since Afghanistan is blowing up (i.e., more Americans are dying there than in Iraq) and it looks like we need to send three combat Brigades into there, we have to get them somewhere. And if a wingnut suggests to you we can use the surge brigades there, please point out that these units are not available because the Army strained itself to the limit just to get them into Iraq for the surge. The only place we can get combat ready brigades for Afghanistan is by diverting units in the pipeline for Iraq and not replacing combat brigades there as they rotate out of Iraq.

    Oh, and didn’t I say, JSMcC*nt and Joe LIEberman are the only people allowed to say we have won in Iraq. You and I don’t get to say that.

  • If the surge has “succeeded” then when does the 100 years of “peaceful occupation” commence ?

  • Oh good, so now Bush can proclaim himself the winning CIC in the biggest, showiest display ever leading up to the door of the new Bush library. Maybe it will include the entire deck of the USS Lincoln with a life-size mock up of him in uniform and the infamous banner with a new banner underneath that says, “I told you so!”

  • So this is what victory looks like? The War in Iraq was all in our minds? Everyone join hands and repeat, “we have succeeded in Iraq.” But still, my friends, we must stay if it takes a hundred or a thousand years.

    Still, I just wish someone would ask him, “What do you think will happen when we stop paying them not to fight?”

  • Depends on how you define ‘success’.

    By the original goals of the ‘Surge’ which was to create a ‘breathing space’ for Iraqi politicians to pass a number of key pieces of legislation (benchmarks) and reach ‘consensus’.

    By that measure the surge has been a complete failure.

    So the Neocons (with the MSN towing the line quite nicely) redefined ‘success’ to mean:

    A drop in violence and significant reductions of US causalties.

    By that measure the ‘surge’ looks better. Although that is a relative term.

    Violence has gone down, at least somewhat. But this has been achieved because of the success of massive ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Bagdad and around the country. By some measures around 80 percent of Bagdad’s Sunnis are either refugees or dead. The death squads have simply run out of people to kill.

    In addition, the military has divided Bagdad and many other Iraqi cities into massive checker boards. You can’t go more than few blocks in Bagdad without hitting a checkpoint. Basically it’s like going through airport security 5 times on your way to work everyday.

    And lets not forget Iran’s growing influence. IRAN (not the US) brokered the current cease fire between Shiite factions. Iran has done more to bring down violence in Iraq that the us has.

    But voilence has gone down.

  • Funny how the media never reminds anyone that the point of the surge was not to bring down violence, it was to bring down the violence so that the Iraqis could reconcile politically. Of course that hasn’t happened, and the media will not ask McCain about it.

  • Hey, glad that he’s giving his “mission accomplished” speech now, before anybody decides to throw their vote away for him.

  • A very convenient piece of rhetoric this McCain has found. I’m beginning to note that for McCain, if he says it, it is! What puissance! -Kevo

  • So the way to win the war is to lose the election!

    But if he wins the election then the war will not be won and we have to stay for 100 years!

    Hey, I like it, he just told me to vote for Obama and we’ll win the war.

  • If “we have succeeded in Iraq”, then why doesn’t McCain call for the return of American troops to American soil. The senile, old man is a threat to himself and all those he would purport to lead. Obama 08!!!

  • McCain snapped at Romney: “Governor, the surge is working. The surge is working, sir. It is working.” When Romney responded, “That’s just what I said,” McCain snapped again: “No, not apparently — it’s working.”

    “I am happy to stand in front of you to tell you that this strategy has succeeded. It has succeeded. It has succeeded.”


    Hot on the heels of his insistance that we need, need, need to drill, I’m wondering if it’s not so much the Goebbels advice about repeating a lie as it might be the mumbling old man thing he’s got going on.

    “”Consarnit! Looks like it’s gonna rain, yessir, looks like rain. Feel it in my bones. S’gonna rain.

    Fascist deception or dithering…. if the McCain campaign would like to get back with me about which meme I should choose, I’ll try to oblige.

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