Confused on Basra

Given the general fogginess of his strategy thinking, it comes as no surprise to see that both John McCain and his key advisor Randy Scheunemann don't really seem to have any understanding of the fighting that played out in Basra over the weekend. All of McCain's thinking about Iraq seems dominated by a desire to achieve "victory" and, consequently, he's unable to grapple with the reality of a multifaceted situation.

For some reason he thinks that helping Nouri al-Maliki help Iranian-backed militias fight other Shiite militias constitutes rolling back Iranian influence and al-Qaeda. Because, basically, he thinks Iran is bad and al-Qaeda is bad, whereas we are good. Maliki is working with us, so he must be good, too, and whoever he's fighting must be the bad guys -- i.e., al-Qaeda and Iran. Nevermind that this has little relationship to reality, it fits with McCain's desire to see an honorable struggle in which we eventually prevail through gritty determination.

Comments

Matthew,

Your fact-based mockery of war-hero John McCain is surely beneath someone of your intellect. It is this sort of vile smear that will make me, a long-time Democrat, vote for McCain in the fall if you keep it up.

Sincerely yours,

Concern Troll

Posted by drjimcooper | April 1, 2008 4:12 PM

Would you settle for shitty frustration?

Posted by phil | April 1, 2008 4:13 PM

You may want to consider that there may be a difference between what McCain says and what he believes about conflicts between the government and militias.

Posted by ostap | April 1, 2008 4:19 PM

Wow. Matthew's using up a lot of straw in this post.

It appears, of course, that McCain and Scheunemann are perfectly correct in what they say (difficult as it is to tease out what was actually said from the ThinkProgress post).

Posted by Al | April 1, 2008 4:24 PM

It's really quite stunning how much of the GOP establishment seems trapped in a John Wayne movie, at least since Reagan, all white hats and black hats. Here's hoping the credits roll this November.

Posted by BryklynLibrul | April 1, 2008 4:40 PM

"he's unable to grapple with the reality of a multifaceted situation."

Which is exactly why he's going to win. Americans don't want to think. Victory and honor? Sounds good to me!

Posted by 55 | April 1, 2008 4:46 PM

I cringe when I hear grown men and women talking about "bad guys". Could American policy possibly get any more childish?

Posted by Gary Sugar | April 1, 2008 4:50 PM

from swimming freestyle:

"John McCain has admitted he's clueless when it comes to the economy. (Fear not - he's checked out Alan Greenspan's book from the library). He's made it pretty clear he intends to run on his military record and gung ho, never mind the facts, position on Iraq. That might be OK if he could just get the details right."

http://swimmingfreestyle.typepad.com

Posted by Jay McDonough | April 1, 2008 5:07 PM

McCain doesn't do nuance or complexity. You got a problem with that, dirty hippie!

Posted by asl | April 1, 2008 5:33 PM

Because, basically, he thinks Iran is bad and al-Qaeda is bad, whereas we are good. Maliki is working with us, so he must be good, too, and whoever he's fighting must be the bad guys -- i.e., al-Qaeda and Iran. Nevermind that this has little relationship to reality, it fits with McCain's desire to see an honorable struggle in which we eventually prevail through gritty determination.

Hilarious.

Posted by Eric Martin | April 1, 2008 6:23 PM

Yes, it was amusing to see McCain utterly clueless over what happened and how it happened. The consensus of virtually everybody at this point is that Maliki blew it big time - with US connivance and support - and the whole affair resulted in a major improvement in both Sadr's and Iran's positions in Iraq. Maliki's credibility - such as it was even before the blowup - is now shot completely.

And McCain has no idea about any of this.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 1, 2008 6:58 PM

Matt, you are confused about Basra? Not any longer my friend. Fred Kagan and his his wife cleared things up for us in his recent post at the Weekly Standard. He sums up with the following:

"Most of all, it is the most overt and decisive recent engagement between our Iraqi allies and their Iranian foes. We should have no doubt about where our interests lie.

See Matt, our friends are Maliki and his govt. Now move along, nothing to see here.

Posted by max bootlicker | April 1, 2008 8:40 PM

As the Jed Report notes, it's up to us to end this war, because McCain never will. As you note, McCain is determined to recast this as some sort of WWII movie; if reality doesn't match his preconceived narrative, well, the truth be damned.

And, again per the Jed Report, I don't see why more people don't get the fact that we've fallen into bin Laden's trap.

We've done what bin Laden wanted; we've got caught in a quagmire that has cost us billions and in the end trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, tied up our military, divided our nation, divided us from our usual allies, and created more animosity against America and spurned more terrorists. I don't think bin Laden could have planned this better.

And of course bin Laden proclaims Iraq as this great battleground. He is baiting us. Do you really believe he is beyond lying to us and using reverse psychology? He knows that his taunts will play on the minds of gullible people like McCain, Bush, and yes, Hillary.

The Iraq war was a moral mistake; we need to admit that. And only under President Obama will we be able to cleanse ourselves of this sin, because only then will we get a new direction.

Posted by cm | April 1, 2008 9:25 PM

"The Iraq war was a moral mistake; we need to admit that. And only under President Obama will we be able to cleanse ourselves of this sin, because only then will we get a new direction."

How will the families of the dead and seriously wounded feel when they hear from their itinerant president that the Iraq War was a mistake?

I had this friend growing up whose father was shelled in Vietnam. Unlike many like him he survived.

He had a plate in his head. He spoke with a slur. He was quick to anger. Unlike amputees he was never the same.

Thousands of people will come back from Iraq like that. They will live with that every day for the rest of their lives. Their families will live with that.

My friend's father was a conservative Republican.

Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War. John McCain would - apparently - vote for any war. Barack Obama wants to double the size of the army; why would he want to do that? Barack Obama is a poseur.

I think I want a president who has one of these people in their family.

Posted by Linus | April 1, 2008 10:10 PM

It seems likely that in the American press McCain's view will win out, regardless of how badly Maliki's blunder looks to Iraqis. We all know Sadr is a bad guy, so even if Maliki is also a bad guy, at least he's our bad guy.

Posted by Owen | April 1, 2008 10:29 PM

McCain should have argued that the chaos in Basra was partly a result of the British strategy of withdrawing their forces based on an arbitrary time line, rather than based on progress on the ground. The Brits withdrew from Basra before the Iraqi government was able to take control of it; that ceded the city to rival militias. McCain warned as much in February, as tomorrow's FT notes.

Maybe McCain should assign one staffer to read the FT for him.

Posted by Fred | April 1, 2008 11:14 PM

As usual, Fred is wrong.

The Brits never controlled Basra, any more than the US controlled Baghdad. Thus, they never "ceded the city to rival militias - because that's all the Brits ever were - a "rival militia".

The same is true of US forces - they are nothing but a "rival militia" - with more members and better equipment, but clueless about how the whole "militia" thing actually works.

Should we proclaim the US at fault because they never "took control" of Sadr City and hence there was a lot of fighting there last week?

It's bullshit.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 2, 2008 1:20 AM

Ignore fred and al. they are paid to post bullshit here.

Posted by merlallen | April 2, 2008 2:33 AM

There is a deliberate conflation of Iran-backed, Shiite Hezbollah and Sunni Al Qaeda that is really dishonest. Hezbollah has not targeted us directly for a long time, though they have gone after Israeli targets.

I do not find McCain's war record heroic; he dropped bombs on people in a misbegotten war, was shot out of the air, and had to be fished out of a lake by peasants. Brave, yes, but not heroic.

Posted by bob h | April 2, 2008 6:31 AM