President McCain Would Hate Candidate McCain’s Iraq Position
My colleague Matt DeLong reports that McCain aide Randy Scheuemann doesn’t give an eff what the allegedly sovereign government of Iraq thinks about getting our dudes off of its lawn. Let’s put politics aside for one second and think this through for a moment.
How does John McCain expect to actually govern if he’s implicitly telling Maliki that the needs of his government to announce a withdrawal of U.S. troops don’t matter? Especially if McCain wishes to prolong the war, he’ll need to work with Maliki or Maliki’s successor(s) in some cases and pressure them in others. Nothing is less productive to those inevitable needs than to send the message that the U.S. will set policy in Iraq unilaterally. This is the man we’re supposed to believe has the superior judgment to be president?
