I can’t understand why the New York Times won’t publish this from John McCain. The op-ed page clearly owes him equal time, after publishing Barack Obama last week. If the standard, as Times Op-Editor wrote in his memo, is “new information,” McCain’s op-ed clearly meets it: the new information is McCain’s inability to adjust his position now that the Iraqi government has announced what must be considered a major change of policy. For example, we have this:
[Obama] makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.
But, of course, that’s wrong. Maliki endorsed a 16-month timetable. And now the Iraqi government is saying that American troops should be out by 2010. (Actually, I see Shipley’s point here: new information would be McCain’s reaction to the Iraqis setting an 2010 end date.)
The most interesting thing about the op-ed is McCain’s tendency to dismiss dramatic, positive events like the Sunni rejection of Al Qaeda and to use many of the same phrases to describe the situation on the ground in Iraq as he did two years ago, when the circumtances were far worse:
The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.
I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war–only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.
I suppose that McCain’s stubborn brittleness on this subject isn’t news. But his inability to respond to a major change in policy from our Iraqi allies–the announcement that they can take it from here–certainly is newsworthy. There are three possibilities:
–McCain doesn’t believe the Iraqis can take it from here. (In the most benign reading, he may see this new position as mere domestic political posturing on Maliki’s part, which is no doubt part of the truth.)
–McCain doesn’t want the Iraqis to take it from here. He still wants long-term, 100 year, military bases.
–McCain doesn’t move very quickly to adapt to changing facts on the ground.
None of them speak very well of the guy.
Fair point raised by Michael Goldfarb from the McCain campaign:
I just want to point out that your latest post on Senator McCain’s op-ed fails to account for the fact that the piece was submitted, and rejected, on Friday. Prime Minister Maliki’s remarks were not reported until Saturday morning. Senator McCain has made clear that any withdraw will be conditions based, and the disposition of a sovereign and democratically elected Iraqi government is certainly one of those conditions, but as a mere mortal he could not have know ahead of time what the Prime Minister was to say.
And I would be even more sympathetic to Goldfarb’s point if it weren’t for the fact that we haven’t seen a straight-up acknowledgment from McCain or any of his spokespeople since it became clear that the Iraqi government has very clearly stated what it wants in terms of a U.S. withdrawal.