For the last couple of weeks, as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has been more forceful in his demands for tens of thousands of additional troops in Iraq, his messages have started to conflict a bit. Over the weekend, for example, McCain acknowledged that if his own plan was implemented, “it would be terrible.” He added that “we’re going to be asking people to go back again and again, maybe even extend their tours.” McCain said he “saw a broken Army in 1973” and didn’t want to see another.
I suppose the argument is, “My plan is bad, but the alternative is worse.” Fine. I think he’s wrong, but it’s his argument and he’s sticking to it. Today, however, McCain went a little further with this line of thinking, arguing that “we will not win this war” without additional combat forces in Iraq.
In carefully scripted language, McCain then adds: If the country does not have the will to do what it takes to win in Iraq — send in more forces — then U.S. troops should not be made to serve more tours of duty.
“As troubling as it is, I can ask a young Marine to go back to Iraq,” he said last week. “What I cannot do is ask him to return to Iraq, to risk life and limb, so that we might delay our defeat for a few months or a year. That is more to ask than patriotism requires.
“It would be immoral, and I could not do it,” the former Vietnam prisoner of war added.
As Greg Sargent noted, this leads to a fairly obvious, important question.
There is no ambiguity there whatsoever: McCain very clearly stated that if additional troops aren’t sent into Iraq, the war will be unwinnable. And if that becomes the case, McCain said, he “cannot” ask soldiers to return to Iraq. This would be “immoral,” he says.
Okay, then — if President Bush decides against troop increases, will McCain then stop supporting the continued troop presence there and call for withdrawal? Will the media press him on this point? And if McCain does continue to support the U.S. troops staying in Iraq — which by his own lights would be “immoral” — will reporters and commentators note the glaring contradiction?
Quite right. McCain can’t have it both ways — he wants 20,000 more troops, and if Bush disagrees and goes in a different direction, McCain necessarily believes the war will be lost. As such, if Bush doesn’t boost troop deployment, McCain has to support withdrawal, right?
It’s the inconvenient flip side to the point we were talking about yesterday. McCain is separating himself from Bush’s policy by calling for an additional 20,000 troops. As Robert Reich explained, this is a way for McCain to “effectively cover his ass. It will allow him to say, ‘If the President did what I urged him to do, none of this would have happened.'”
But there’s a trap. If the president doesn’t do what McCain urges him to do, McCain is left in the untenable position of joining Dems in calling for a withdrawal (which he doesn’t want to do) or standing by a war policy he’s already described as “immoral” (which he can’t do).
Your move, senator.