Following on the heels of Barack Obama’s speech in DC on national security, John McCain appeared in Albuquerque to make a very different case.
“Over the last year, Senator Obama and I were part of a great debate about the war in Iraq. Both of us agreed the Bush administration had pursued a failed strategy there and that we had to change course. Where Senator Obama and I disagreed, fundamentally, was what course we should take. I called for a comprehensive new strategy – a surge of troops and counterinsurgency to win the war. Senator Obama disagreed. He opposed the surge, predicted it would increase sectarian violence, and called for our troops to retreat as quickly as possible.
“Today we know Senator Obama was wrong. The surge has succeeded. And because of its success, the next President will inherit a situation in Iraq in which America’s enemies are on the run, and our soldiers are beginning to come home.”
Let’s take this one step at a time. First is the notion that McCain used to stand right alongside Obama, denouncing Bush’s “failed strategy” and demanding that we “change course.” It’s certainly possible that McCain doesn’t remember any of the last several years — he is an awfully forgetful fellow, especially when it comes to details he’d like Americans to forget — but to argue, in public, with a straight face, that he and Obama were on the same page about Bush’s pre-2007 Iraq policy is truly insane.
Just the opposite is true. In June 2005, when Bush was “pursuing a failed strategy,” Tim Russert suggested to McCain that on Iraq and other issues, “The fact is you are different than George Bush.” McCain disagreed: “[O]n the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I’ve been totally in agreement and support of President Bush…. I’m particularly talking about the war on terror, the war in Iraq.”
Over and over again, McCain said he supported Bush’s Iraq policy, and over and over again, McCain said we needed to “stay the course.”
“Both of us agreed the Bush administration had pursued a failed strategy”? It’s not especially surprising to see McCain grant himself retroactive wisdom, but that doesn’t make it true.
Second is the notion that the surge has “succeeded,” which necessarily means, according to this argument, that McCain was right and Obama was wrong. I think I’ll just quote some of Obama’s speech on the subject today:
“It has been 18 months since President Bush announced the surge. As I have said many times, our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence. General Petraeus has used new tactics to protect the Iraqi population. We have talked directly to Sunni tribes that used to be hostile to America, and supported their fight against al Qaeda. Shiite militias have generally respected a cease-fire. Those are the facts, and all Americans welcome them.
“For weeks, now, Senator McCain has argued that the gains of the surge mean that I should change my commitment to end the war. But this argument misconstrues what is necessary to succeed in Iraq, and stubbornly ignores the facts of the broader strategic picture that we face.
“In the 18 months since the surge began, the strain on our military has increased, our troops and their families have borne an enormous burden, and American taxpayers have spent another $200 billion in Iraq. That’s over $10 billion each month. That is a consequence of our current strategy.
“In the 18 months since the surge began, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated. June was our highest casualty month of the war. The Taliban has been on the offensive, even launching a brazen attack on one of our bases. Al Qaeda has a growing sanctuary in Pakistan. That is a consequence of our current strategy.
“In the 18 months since the surge began, as I warned at the outset – Iraq’s leaders have not made the political progress that was the purpose of the surge. They have not invested tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues to rebuild their country. They have not resolved their differences or shaped a new political compact.”
I’d just add one broader point to this. If today’s remarks in Albuquerque were any indication, McCain’s strategy is to look back and argue that his judgment was superior to Obama’s. That’s extraordinarily ridiculous — McCain’s been fundamentally wrong about every aspect of the war since before it began (remember, back in ’02, when he said Sunnis and Shi’ia would get along fine?).
McCain would be smart to talk about a strategy for the future, because the more he focuses on his record, the more it’s a reminder of how catastrophically wrong he’s been from the outset. Unless, that is, McCain is hoping that he can just manufacture a record that doesn’t exist in reality, and that the media won’t call him on it.
Oh wait….