Make it 100

To return to John McCain's 100 years' war remarks, it's worth considering what this says about him as a potential commander in chief:

George W. Bush, I think most people can agree, has a tendency toward the cavalier and irresponsible. Liberal critics such as myself also tend to view his strategy in Iraq as aimed at a perpetual occupation of that country. Nevertheless, not even George W. Bush is nearly so cavalier and irresponsible as to make the kind of remarks McCain is saying here. Bush, it seems, has advisors who know something about the diplomatic situation. Bush has even spoken personally with heads of state and other officials throughout the Arab world. Bush, in short, recklessless and immature though he may be still knows that it plays very very very poorly in the Arab world for American leaders to run around talking about 100 year occupations of Iraq.

Comments

The cowardly surrender caucus represented by John McCain wants to place a 100 year limit on Our Victory In Iraq.

Clearly our interests can only be served by a candidate willing to back an eternal deployment, if not longer.

Posted by El Cid | January 4, 2008 9:40 AM

honesty or senility?

Posted by donna L. | January 4, 2008 9:53 AM

I think it's McCain's plan to remain relevant as a candidate by offering a Giuliani-style international belligerence without a Giuliani-style barely-concealed-Fascist-authoritarianism.

Posted by James Gary | January 4, 2008 9:57 AM

WTF would be the point of a century-long occupation of Iraq?

And won't the troops get a bit disgruntled after their 50th redeployment to Baghdad?

Posted by rea | January 4, 2008 9:57 AM

To be fair, McCain was not envisioning a 100 years "war", rather something like South Korea, where we have a seemingly permanent, peaceful military presence. I agree that that is totally unrealistic in the Middle East.

Posted by Bill | January 4, 2008 10:03 AM

On the plus side, there might be some awesome fusion cuisine between U.S. and Iraqi fare after a century or two or millenia of occupation. K-ration of masgoof anyone?

Posted by El Cid | January 4, 2008 10:03 AM

It would do wonders for Baghdad's burgeoning shoe polish and dry cleaning industry. Wait, scratch the shoe polish-they wear those damned desert brown boots now, don't they?

Posted by gerontion | January 4, 2008 10:04 AM

To fair, St. John is talking about a century if our men and women aren't being whacked. It seems to me the bigger problem is comparing Iraq with post-war Japan and South Korea. I don't recall reading much about IEDs and suicide bombers in either of those countries post conflict. So I guess the follow-up question for Senator McCain does he think Iraq is comparable to Japan or S Korea now, and if not, when will it be?

Posted by Jeff S. | January 4, 2008 10:09 AM

Well, in fairness to McCain, how exactly is this different than the endless series of six-month F.U.s that all the "sensible" DC/NYC people seem to advocate, and which as near as I can tell is "sort of" embraced by the leading Democrats?

In mathematics or software, iterating n => n+1 without limit gets you to infinity, not just a mere 100 years.

Also, since McCain is so old, it's likely he'd be the main attraction at his own funeral within a few years of reaching the White House, probably sooner than any of the Democrats would actually pull us out of Iraq of their own free will (rather than be forced to do so by America's possible financial collapse).

Posted by RKU | January 4, 2008 10:12 AM

Well, Jeff, if you spent a few minutes doing some actual research, you might find that in Germany, post occupation, there were "anti-occupation resistence" attacks by former Nazis. These attacks were few and far between, for three reasons: (1) the response was forceful, (2) former Nazis routinely turned up dead, and (3) the Allies had essentially flattened the country, leaving no one any room to believe that resistence could be successful.

McCain is telling the truth about the Islamic Middle East - you might not like it, and we definitely need to have an open and full discussion about our options - but stop the self-deception.

Posted by Eagle613 | January 4, 2008 10:15 AM

And let's not forget "bomb Iran" to the tune of Barbara Ann.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/McCain_unplugged_Bomb_bomb_bomb_bomb_0419.html

Talk about cavalier.

Posted by Adam | January 4, 2008 10:36 AM

Eaagle613, that must have been some serious "anti-occupation resistance", given that not a single American soldier was killed by them.

Seriously, man, the "there was an anti-occupation resistance in German after WW2 just like in Iraq!" talking point is at least 4 years out of date.

Posted by Tyro | January 4, 2008 10:37 AM

The cowardly surrender caucus represented by John McCain wants to place a 100 year limit on Our Victory In Iraq.

Clearly our interests can only be served by a candidate willing to back an eternal deployment, if not longer.

Sadly, there are some people who really do believe that. While Giuliani tanked in Iowa, he didn't get the zero votes he should have.

And, in fairness to McCain . . . MY is 100% on the ball and fair to McCain here. Talking about a century in Iraq, regardless of the circumstances of that century, is a diplomatic disaster of the highest proportions. Calls for more-or-less permanent large-scale christian military presence on muslim land--exactly how 99% of the Middle East muslims are going to see this--only serve to make sure that even a short term presence builds extreme and extremist resentment and makes things worse than they already are. Whatever our goals in Iraq might be at this point--and I don't think there are any military goals, but, I'll assume for this point that there are--talk like McCain's makes them utterly impossible to achieve.

Posted by R Johnston | January 4, 2008 10:42 AM

McCain wants our presence in Iraq to sound like it's about defeating terrorists rather than about controlling oil. Iraq's significance in that regard may peak later than Peak Oil -- it'll be OUR OIL, after all, so we'd better hoard it -- but it sure doesn't have 100 years of significance in that regard.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 4, 2008 10:45 AM

That's a little better, Matt, but you are still misrepresenting McCain's statements.

It is not an occupation of Iraq if we are stationed there like we are in Germany, South Korea, etc.

It is an occupation if we still control the government to an extent and we still are violently opposed. And that situation will not last much longer, even if McCain is President. We'll either put an end to it(unlikely) or pull out and let them sort it out, with us taking sides, hopefully intelligently.

But the idea of staying in Iraq for 100 years if there is no violence should be no more controversial than staying in Qatar for 100 years.

Posted by Adam Herman | January 4, 2008 10:46 AM

That's a little better, Matt, but you are still misrepresenting McCain's statements.

It is not an occupation of Iraq if we are stationed there like we are in Germany, South Korea, etc.

It is an occupation if we still control the government to an extent and we still are violently opposed. And that situation will not last much longer, even if McCain is President. We'll either put an end to it(unlikely) or pull out and let them sort it out, with us taking sides, hopefully intelligently.

But the idea of staying in Iraq for 100 years if there is no violence should be no more controversial than staying in Qatar for 100 years.

Posted by Adam Herman | January 4, 2008 10:47 AM

Yes, indeed, history is filled with all sorts of "urban legends" like the vast German resistance to the post-WWII American occupation.

Similarly, on the other side, there was the once widely believed myth of the "vast Free French resistance" to the German occupation earlier during WWII. Then we discover that Socialist Resistance Hero Mitterand and all of his friends were actually full collaborators...

Interestingly enough, a historian friend of mine recently mentioned that there was also no strong resistance to the German/Italian occupation of the Balkans, despite all those endless stories of the fanatic ferocity of Tito's partisans as well as their non-Communist rivals. Apparently, the Serbs, Croats, Communists, Chetniks, etc. spent nearly all their time and energy massacring each other, while pretty much ignoring the Axis Occupiers.

Don't know if this claim is true, and I've never bothered trying to check, but given my gradual reassessment of 20th Century mythologizing these days, it would hardly surprise me.

Offhand, I'd say that the Iraqi resistance to American occupation is among the most determined and ferocious in recent world history. Everyone knew the Bush Administration would make the history books...

Posted by RKU | January 4, 2008 10:49 AM

Tyro--I believe your comment that not a single U.S. soldier was killed during post-WWII reconstruction only applies to Japan, not to Germany.

P.S.: I'm not interested enough in this topic to actually find the actual data--mainly b/c McCain is clearly not calling for a 100 years war, but a 100 years presence (as a mere possibility, no less, rather than as a policy).

Posted by nvs | January 4, 2008 12:00 PM

Eagle613, if you spent a few some actual research, like, I don't know, reading what I wrote, you'd see that you're not even winning your brave, epic battle with straw!

Posted by Jeff S. | January 4, 2008 12:58 PM

To quote the man, "I also firmly believe that the challenge of the 21st century is the struggle against radical Islamic extremism. It is a transcendent issue. It is hydra-headed. It will be with us for the rest of the century."

Posted by Kenneth | January 4, 2008 7:51 PM

This is exactly the kind of comment a Democrat could never get away with. Any attempt to explain the nuanced intent behind it would fall on deaf ears. All people would hear from every one on Cable News, radio, Drudge, The Politico, The Corner, etc., etc. would be the mantra of "X wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years" and it would be repeated ad nauseum until significantly pinned on the candidate. Whereas McCain puts this out and all you have is a smattering of left-center bloggers musing over it. Behold the power of the echo chamber. Or in the case of Democrats, lack there of.

Posted by dwightkschrute | January 4, 2008 8:52 PM

The STUPIDITY of his comment is not that we could station troops in say, Costa Rica, for a hundred years, or whatever.

The STUPIDITY of his statement is that ANY number of troops in IRAQ will not be attacked FOR the next 100 years.

The people of Iraq HATE the US. Get that through your heads. Any US individual wandering around Iraq for the next generation or two of Iraqis is going to get shot at some point.

So it has absolutely nothing to do with any nonsense about "oh, yeah, we could station troops in Qatar for 100 years if they weren't shooting at us" or South Korea (where most of the Koreans don't like us either, because we run over their kids with tanks and rape their women, but at least we didn't murder most of their relatives five years ago).

Get a goddamn clue. McCain is a MORON for even suggesting that anything like this makes any sense.

If the US military is not out of Iraq completely within the next couple of years, they will be killed there. The only thing preventing that from happening now is the conflict between Sunni and Shia - and that won't last forever. Sooner or later either both will put aside their differences and concentrate on the US occupation, or their differences will be sufficiently resolved that they can concentrate on the US occupation.

The US is NOT going to be in Iraq for more than a couple more years. And if Iran is attacked, the US will be driven out within months of that event.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 4, 2008 11:44 PM

So McCain wants it both ways. If Iraq is peaceful then we should plan to be there for 100 years. But if Iraq is still in turmoil - either civil war or war against us - then we must remain in Iraq to "keep the peace." In other words, there is no scenario under which the US will leave Iraq - ever. I bet that will go over really well with the American electorate. Suddenly I'm reminded of why McCain flopped in the first place.

Posted by Elrod | January 5, 2008 12:16 AM

Look at the reactions of the faces in the video when McCain says "make it 100" and then continues to make the case for permanent occupation. Pure shock. Seriously, scroll backward and forward on the video and watch ALL the bodies and faces twitch at McCain's response. These are Republican primary voters here. They weren't nodding their heads in approval or letting the comment go unnoticed. They were stunned. I think this video will haunt the McCain campaign for a long time.

Posted by Elrod | January 5, 2008 12:22 AM

I'll add to my comment above this side note.

Ambassador Crocker recently said that the standdown of al-Sadr's militia could not have happened without Iranian permission.

I say otherwise. The fact that Hakim and al-Sade are exploring a reconciliation of their militias indicates that it was Hakim who was pressured by the Iranians to accommodate al-Sadr.

Iran would love to have ALL the major Shia factions listening to them. They would probably minimize the conflict between Shia and Sunni. al-Sadr in particular is valuable there because he is the only Shia militia leader to reach out to the Sunni insurgency in the past.

Get al-Sadr on board with the Shia government to some degree, and get the Sunnis to get on board with the notion of postponing the Sunni-Shia fight in favor of driving out the occupation, and things will be looking very bad for the US.

The only flaw in this theory is that the Maliki government which is presumably supported by the Iranians is dependent on the US occupation. If Iran wants a stable Iraqi pro-Shia government, it either has to consider accepting the US occupation - which I doubt it wants - or it has to consider dumping Maliki and his crowd at some point and putting in a new slate of Shia leaders as well as attempting some reconciliation with the Sunni.

Either way, the US is going to lose that game.

And the recently broached reconciliation between Hakim and al-Sadr may be the first moves in that game. Maliki may find himself double-crossed by the Iranians in the near future.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 5, 2008 6:52 AM