In the midst of an unpopular military campaign, one senator took a firm stand for troop withdrawal, regardless of conditions on the ground. He insisted that waiting for democracy to “flourish” is folly, and America would be better served if locals were to “police themselves.” Asking American military personnel to prevent violence between one group of local citizens and another is a mistake that would help no one. He highlighted the fact that “we were there once before,” and he saw no reason to stay and allow “mission creep” to materialize.
The senator, of course, was John McCain. The conflict was in Haiti in 1994, when President Clinton was protecting a democratically elected government. The rhetoric may sound familiar, though, given that the principles McCain embraces now are completely at odds with the principles he embraced before.
What’s more, Haiti is hardly an isolated example from McCain’s past. When Clinton sent forces into Somalia, McCain introduced a measure to cut off funding for the troops while they were in harm’s way. Now McCain argues that anyone who dares to even consider such a move isn’t to be trusted.
With this in mind, the LAT had a terrific front-page item today noting when it comes to foreign policy — allegedly, McCain’s strength as a candidate — his record is littered with “mixed signals” and contradictory positions.
On the campaign trail today, McCain is seen as an unyielding hawk. But before his first presidential run in 2000, he declared he would work with the Democratic Party’s brain trust to devise his foreign policy.
And while he now describes himself as a “foot soldier in the Reagan revolution,” he infuriated Republicans as a freshman congressman in 1983 by trying to thwart President Reagan’s deployment of troops in Lebanon.
The presumptive GOP nominee for president, McCain — who leads a congressional delegation to Europe and the Middle East this week — has adopted a surprising diversity of views on foreign policy issues during his 25 years in Congress. It is a pattern that brings uncertainty to the path he would take if elected.
Indeed, looking back at McCain’s years of drawing foreign policy conclusions, the LAT noted, “they seem quirky and a la carte.”
McCain, an ex-Navy pilot and Vietnam POW who has built his campaign around his national security expertise, has advanced views on Iraq and Iran that are tough and assertive, and that seem to put him squarely in the neoconservative camp.
Yet McCain has on many occasions resisted calls for use of U.S. troops. Even now, he adopts positions that are closer to those of traditional, pragmatic Republicans than the more hawkish neoconservatives.
One sign of the internal contradictions in his views is growing friction between rival camps of McCain supporters — between neoconservatives and those with more traditional views, widely called “realists.” Both sides believe they have assurances from McCain that he would largely follow their path, and that like-minded allies would have key roles in the new administration.
The conflicting signals have caught the attention of foreign policy experts. “Who is the real John McCain?” asked Dmitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a Washington think tank and stronghold of the realist thinkers.
That’s the inherent problem with a senator who’s tried to reinvent himself more than once — a sense of his core values and principles starts to disappear. No one knows who the “real” McCain is because he seems to be constantly changing, hoping to capitalize on the prevailing political winds.
When it comes to Republican schisms between neocons and realists, McCain apparently wants both sides to see him as on their team.
Realists are encouraged by the fact that in 1983, McCain opposed extending Reagan’s deployment of U.S. troops in Lebanon, opposed intervention in Haiti, was reluctant to intervene in Bosnia, and even initially opposed going to war with Saddam Hussein after he invaded Kuwait in 1990. “John is a traditional national security guy,” said retired Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, a former top intelligence official. If McCain reaches the White House, Inman predicts, “there’s going to be a lot of disappointment on the neoconservative side.”
Moreover, the Nixon Center’s Simes said McCain “has privately assured prominent supporters in the traditional foreign policy camp that ‘his more exuberant statements don’t necessarily reflect his real views.'”
Neocons, meanwhile, believe the exact opposite, and are encouraged by precisely those exuberant statements McCain makes about Iraq, Iran, Russia, and North Korea.
Who’s right? Who knows? McCain is a man of principle — weak, malleable, and easily forgotten principles.