Sen. John McCain has an interesting argument about how to win in Iraq. He argues that we need more troops and less blind partisanship:
The United States will fail in Iraq if our adversaries believe they can outlast us. If our troop deployment schedules are more important than our staying power, we embolden our enemies and make it harder for our friends to take risks on our behalf. When the United States announces a schedule for training and deploying Iraqi security officers, then announces the acceleration of that schedule, then accelerates it again, it sends a signal of desperation, not certitude.
Politics at home has handicapped our progress. Today some Democrats who supported the war in Iraq oppose spending the money required to win the peace. Others blindly criticize the administration without proposing an alternative policy that preserves U.S. interests.
With the exception of Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, who are committed to victory in Iraq, it is unclear what the other Democratic presidential candidates would do differently to ensure an American victory — or how they would handle the consequences of the early American withdrawal some advocate. Howard Dean has expressed ambiguity about the justness of our cause in Iraq. I hope he will learn that partisan anger is no substitute for moral clarity.
Indeed McCain’s argument is a strong one. We have to go on the offensive in this war. You don’t win wars by standing around and letting your troops be shot and bombed. You win wars by attacking the enemy and killing as many of them as you can before they kill you. If that means calling up more reservists and sending in the Marines, so be it. If that means spending more money, then so be it. The primary priority in this conflict must be victory, and we must be willing to use whatever resources are available to achieve that victory.
Iraq is now the centerpiece of the war on terror. If al-Qaeda can drive us out of Iraq it will vindicate bin Laden’s belief that Americans are weaklings who can be bombed into submission. Terrorism will become all the more common and thousands of Americans will die. If we stay and fight the terrorists into submission, Islamofascism can be driven into the dustheap of history along with fascism, Nazism, and Communism. It is clear which choice is the one that we must make in order to prevent more atrocities like those of September 11.
So have Dean, Edwards, Kerry, Clark, Kucinich, Sharpton and Moseley-Braun come out in favor of pulling all troops out of Iraq immediately like McCain implies? If they have, I haven’t heard it….and they are making a huge political mistake.
I happen to agree that at this point, sending the $87 billion to Iraq is a necessary evil, but it should be accompanied with relentless criticism of the man who fraudulently created the need for it. To suggest we should muffle long-overdue criticism of Bush’s pathologically deceptive foreign policy because it “empowers the enemy to see us fighting amongst each other” ultimately reduces us to the intimidation-driven nationalist state the enemy has. If Bush and his minions think wartime criticism diminishes morale, perhaps they should think twice about telling lie after lie after lie after lie in our next foreign policy endeavor. But then again, the war’s been over since that April day Bush declared “Mission Accomplished.” I keep forgetting.
Also, it’s cute how conservatives tip their hats to John McCain when he toes their line a few days a year. I’m sure in your mind, it should make up for the 350-some days per year you spend disparaging him as a RINO.