After months of pandering to the "victory with honor" crowd, McCain is once again a policy maverick, but not in a way he anticipated.
This weekend, the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government agreed to the principle of a withdrawal timeline, breaking with years of Bush stonewalling calls for a planned withdrawal from Iraq. That sent McCain's advisers scrambling to explain why their candidate is the odd man out (to borrow language from The Politico), holding a position from which even President Bush has backed down.
Opposing a timeline once made strategic sense, but only when Iraq was a fractured shell unable to defend itself from trouble-making by Iran and foreign insurgents aligned with Al Qaeda. But with Iraq now finding its feet and facing two critical elections in the next two years, the principle of a timed withdrawal makes much more sense. Agreeing to a departure time table will blunt debate over "the occupiers" during the Iraqi election cycle and hopefully push radicals to the margins. It will also allow for a very predictable transition of power following those elections.
McCain now has a choice to make. On the one end, he can cling to a hawkish mentality that may have a place in a discussion about war, but not in a responsible debate about post-war reconstruction. On the other, he can agree that a timeline is a good idea and one with with Iraqi support, a move that essentially concedes Obama's decision-making ability and foreign policy knowhow.
My bet? He'll attempt to get out of making a tough choice by co-opting Obama's position and opening a debate on minor details of the time table. For example, by adopting the long-lived Republican "tough father" archetype, he can demand "results" and "accountability" from the Iraqis in exchange for withdrawal.
It's a losing formula, however, since Obama's plans for Iraq have coincided with the evolving situation there. It's a fact that shows that Obama has done his homework and is well prepared to manage the biggest foreign policy challenge of this election.
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3 comments:
Great post, Ryan!
One of the many problems with the timeline/no timeline debate that has dominated the public air of late is that it sets up a false dichotomy. What is wrong with the common sense position that events will dictate the pace of withdrawal from Iraq?
To anonymous, I think the issue with an events-driven withdrawal is determining which events matter and agreeing on a firm measurement of success. Even assuming that all parties are honest brokers, that's hard to do.
Plus, setting security-based criteria for withdrawal actually empowers radicals, since a small group of militants can wreak havoc. That basically puts the US at the mercy of radicals and thugs, much like the Israeli/Palestinian peace process gets constantly derailed.
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