Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Losing the argument



There will be much talk about this clip today but I'd like to focus on one thing. McCain tries to defend his "100 years in Iraq" comment by saying he was making a comparison to our forces in Germany and Japan. But, even if Obama were to concede the idea of a peaceful Iraq eventually becoming real (a HUGE concession), Obama would still win the argument. Why? Because there is just no desire on the part of the American people to sustain a peaceful force in Iraq for 100 years.

McCain's real delusion is not that we are winning in Iraq. It is that his vision for an American hegemony in the Middle East has any political weight.

Update: Andrew Sullivan gets to the heart of it:
... do Americans want a neo-empire in the Middle East? Do they want US troops permanently stationed in Iraq with up to 60 permanent bases? That's what the Bush administration wants to foist onto Iraq; and that's what McCain believes in. The viral video now buzzing on the Internets is not a gaffe, it's the truth. McCain would love to see US troops stationed peacefully in Iraq for the foreseeable future. To him it does not matter when they come home. What matters is that the casualty rate get low enough to persuade Americans they shouldn't care about another expansion of American empire. In fact, the entire debate about bringing them home is puzzling and frustrating to McCain. After all, why should we bring them home when being there for ever is the point?

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