In January, Senator John McCain’s responded to a questions about his reaction to President George Bush saying we might be in Iraq 50 years. McCain said:
"Maybe 100. We’ve been in South Korea, we’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it’s fine with me. I would hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping, and motivating people every single day."
His remark has been his Reverend Wright moment. There are as many Google hits for mccain 100 years as for hannah montana photos. He keeps trying to explain it away, but the questions just keep coming. My reaction was different from the more literal version that he’s being crucified for, but in my mind, even more damning.
First, I think both McCain and Bush are arrogant, smart alecs, shooting off their mouths without much thought. Neither seems to understand the gravity of the decisions before them. But beyond that, I think they are both actually saying something indirectly about the foreign policy that got us to Iraq in the first place. McCain even alludes to it in the quoted comment, "if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world." And recently, Neoconservative Fredrick Kagan said it in the Weekly Standard:
Success will have been achieved when Iraq is a stable, representative state that controls its own territory, is oriented toward the West, and is an ally in the struggle against militant Islamism, whether Sunni or Shia. This has been said over and over. Why won’t war critics hear it?
So, I think both Bush and McCain mean what they say: our goal from the outset for invading Iraq was to establish a foothold in the Middle East for both our own National Defense and access to Iraqi Oil Fields. So they are saying, we don’t care how long it takes, we’re there for the count. But it’s not just McCain and Bush, not even just Kagan, Karl Rove said it in March on O’Reilly’s T.V. Show on Fox News:
…by winning, we will send a powerful message that the momentum is on our side. And it will rally the Muslim world to us. It will also create a huge influence in the Middle East. Think about the creation of the democracy in the historic center of the Middle East with the third-largest oil reserves in the world. If we have a functioning democracy in Iraq, that’s an ally in the war on terror, a counterweight to mullahs Iran and to Assad in Syria, this will create a very hopeful center of reform and energy for reform throughout the Middle East."
All four of them seem sort of incredulous that we don’t get it. We invaded Iraq to establish a base of operations in the Middle East. We never planned to leave before Iraq was a team player for American interests. And as Kagan says, "This has been said over and over. Why won’t war critics hear it?"
I can answer Kagan’s question. The reason we war critics didn’t hear it is that you didn’t say it to us. These guys have apparently known this was our goal from the very beginning. The WMD, al Qaeda ties business was just something they had to say to cover the invasion. The fantasy that we would ever pull out was kept alive, but never a serious idea. It has apparently been said over and over to each other, but they didn’t say it to us – not until these recent days when they’re trying to get their successors to perpetuate this little piece of deception in perpetuity.
My point is that Senator McCain has apparently been in on this plan for a long time, long enough to be surprised that we reacted to his 100 year comment. Senator McCain didn’t tell us about his insider knowledge. Now he’s telling us about invading Iraq to bring about [as Karl Rove says] "the creation of the democracy in the historic center of the Middle East with the third-largest oil reserves in the world. If we have a functioning democracy in Iraq, that’s an ally in the war on terror, a counterweight to mullahs Iran and to Assad in Syria, this will create a very hopeful center of reform and energy for reform throughout the Middle East."
This is a deal breaker to me. McCain is professing an American Foreign Policy that is antithetical to American values, and one that America would never have agreed to if it had been presented directly [also, by the way, it can’t be achieved]. Bush, McCain, Kagan, and Rove are assuming that the morality of this country is as riddled with holes as their own, and that we’ll see the benefit of foreign conquest and go along with their making it sound like something else. McCain’s "100 years" is more than just a statement that he’s not pulling us out of Iraq, it’s a window into a kind of dishonesty that has pervaded the Republican Administration he proposes to perpetuate. No thanks, John. No thanks…
UPDATE: And then I read this, McCain’s comment in Denver today:
My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will — that will then prevent us — that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.
Bull!