For weeks, the line in Republican/media circles was that Barack Obama either has or will move towards John McCain’s position on Iraq policy. Time’s Mark Halperin called the shift, that never actually happened in reality, “one of the biggest things that’s happened so far in the general election.” Charles Krauthammer said Obama is “done” erasing “all meaningful differences with McCain on withdrawal from Iraq.” The McCain campaign put out a statement arguing that Obama “has now adopted John McCain’s position” on troop withdrawal.
All of this, of course, was completely wrong. Obama didn’t move towards McCain’s position; he didn’t move at all.
As it turns out, though, one campaign is starting to move closer to the other. Eric Kleefeld reported:
The McCain campaign has come up with an intriguing new way to sell his opposition to a timetable for withdrawal: McCain just might withdraw from Iraq sooner than Obama’s 16 month deadline!
“He’d like troops to come home earlier than 16 months if the conditions allow it,” said Congresswoman Heather Wilson of New Mexico, on a conference call with reporters just now. “Senator Obama has said it’s a 16-month timeline no matter what.”
Wilson walked this line back a bit later on, reminding people that any such withdrawal would have to be based on conditions on the ground, and might take longer: “Whether that happens in 12 months, or 16 months, or 24 months, the important thing is that our troops come home with victory and America’s vital national interests secured.”
One is reminded of George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, in which the ruling regime ran an intentionally never-ending war with the frequent promise in news updates that it was “within measurable distance of its end.”
Now, as rhetoric goes, Wilson’s comments are surprisingly weak. McCain can’t even define “victory” in Iraq, better yet aim to bring U.S. troops home once the undefined goal-line is reached.
But it’s the notion that if we elect McCain, he might bring the troops home faster than Obama that’s especially amusing.
It’s possible the McCain campaign’s surrogates aren’t entirely up on the McCain campaign’s policies, but the presumptive nominee has been rather candid in his expectations for troop levels in Iraq. As McCain sees it, we need to keep troop levels high so that we can “win” the war in Iraq. How long would that take? It doesn’t matter; we stay until we achieve “victory.”
At that point, we should be prepared for a lengthy, decades-long “presence” in Iraq, keeping troops there the way we did in post-WWII Japan and Germany. McCain has famously said this could last “100 years.”
Indeed, as recently as a month ago, McCain reiterated his support for staying in Iraq indefinitely. He’s said the same thing, over and over again, for more than a year now.
And yet, there’s one of McCain’s surrogates, on an official McCain conference call, dangling the possibility that McCain could bring the troops home even faster than Obama.
I’m sure there are some people who continue to take the McCain campaign seriously. I just don’t know why.