Phony Convergence
Marc Ambinder posits that McCain and Obama have both essentially come around to the same view in Iraq: withdrawing the bulk of US troops over 16 months, starting January 2009. Ambinder thinks this changes the debate on Iraq to who has a better strategy to who would be better at implementation. Questions of “judgment” (McCain with the surge, Obama with the war) are now “a matter of pride.” Let’s say that Ambinder is right about where McCain and Obama stand; it’s still ridiculous to say that the Iraq or the foreign policy debate becomes mute. For McCain to credibly support a 16 month timetable, he must explain what the Surge has done to enable a withdrawal and while we couldn’t have withdrawn at some other essentially arbitrary time – like after the first round of elections. He’ll also have to explain what exactly we’ve achieved in Iraq after having withdrawn, and why every American death after another time we could have withdrawn was worth it.
Because once you drop the imperial imerative to stay in Iraq, you’ll quickly realize that the US presence can only buy short-term stability and that the only card the US has to play (we’re already horribly overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan) is a credible withdrawal timeline. So why didn’t McCain support withdrawal after the first round of elections? Why hasn’t McCain denounced the policy of rogue state rollback, or unilateral regime change? After all, once you admit that we should get troops out of Iraq sometime soon, then it becomes obvious that the war was stupid, and that these types of wars wil tend to be completely pointless. The stated rationale for Iraq was bogus (WMDs) and if McCain is serious about setting a time horizon for troop presence, then even the insidious, unstated rationales come to naught (permanent US troop presence in a strategic middle eastern country, securing oil flow, scaring Iran etc).
Sounds like McCain is just desperately flailing following al-Maliki coming out in support of Obama’s plan and has realized that his dream of American troops hanging out in Iraq for 100 years with no violence is not particularly feasible or popular. I guess the real question is whether or not the mainstream commentariat will break out in hives over a much more egregious flip flop than any “refining” Obama has done over the past few months. As Jamelle points out, McCain has now essentially aped the Obama line on Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s pretty Mavericky.
