McCain and Bush on Iraq

As John McCain likes to say, he has at various points in time disagreed with George W. Bush's tactical approach to Iraq. But in the ways that matter, he's generally agreed with Bush's strategic vision. It's a little hard to capture that point in a series of video clips, but I think this thing makes the point that the extent of McCain/Bush disagreement was pretty limited:

In some ways, I think McCain himself doesn't quite realize how Bush-esque he is. He clearly doesn't like Bush, and has been disliking him for a long time. But that kind of personalized, overblown disdain for Bush-the-man can wind up leading you to overestimate Bush-the-grand-strategist. To McCain, Bush's policies have failed because of Bush. Replace Bush with McCain and shift tactics around the margins, and the same basic ideas should work out fine. It's a nice theory, but I don't think it's a true theory.

Comments

It's not even a nice theory. It's fucking stupid.

Posted by Cakesniffer | June 4, 2008 5:47 PM

I'm not so sure McCain's sales pitch is too terribly flawed, actually. Of course his policies are very similar to Bush's--he's a Republican. As such, the only real sales pitch he can have is to say something to the effect of, "All you people who voted for Bush weren't wrong to want him in the White House more than his opponent. I agree with him on most things as well. But Bush is an incompetent boob and I'm not. I can deliver on what Bush promised."

How else could one possibly represent the GOP and still distance oneself from Bush? I don't envy him for being left with this, but what else can he do? Run as a Democrat Lite(TM)?

Posted by TW | June 4, 2008 5:50 PM

To McCain, Bush's policies have failed because of Bush. Replace Bush with McCain and shift tactics around the margins, and the same basic ideas should work out fine.

This is all the more striking and relevant because it is also Bush's approach to managing the war.

Posted by Kriston | June 4, 2008 6:06 PM

Ah, the ole "incompetence" dodge. Paired with the conservatism never fails; some conservatives fail conservatism. Of course, conservatives all back these "questionable" conservatives until the bitter end.

Posted by dms | June 4, 2008 6:14 PM

"Replace Bush with McCain and shift tactics around the margins, and the same basic ideas should work out fine."

I think you've made a great point that this is where McCain is coming from. Fortunately (unfortunately for him), it's nowhere near accurate. The reason that the Iraq war has been and is such a failure is it's foundation and the ridiculous sounding tactic of "staying the course". Replacing Bush will not change this one iota leading me to believe (along with his "pulse-pounding" speech last night) that Senator McCain has quite literally lost his mind!

Thanks Matt, and keep up the GREAT work.

Posted by Paul Gilmartin | June 4, 2008 7:17 PM

About the only "tactical" changes John could offer that might make a difference are 1) don't disband the Iraqi Army, 2) don't cashier the entire Baathist elite, and 3) listen to Gen. Shinseki.

Oops, too late. Carry on then, FUBAR.

Posted by cmholm | June 4, 2008 8:22 PM

For me one part of this video evidence that is striking is the piece where McCain actually asserts that Gen. Petraus goes out in an unarmored humvee. That is so laughable that it alone should almost disqualify McCain from being president.

I mean can you see the commander of forces in Iraq actually going out in an unprotected vehicle?

It's laughable, but also sad that the Republicans have nominated another moron to follow Bush.

The McCain from an earlier era may have been more intelligent, but this McCain is as dumb as Bush. Maybe to get the GOP nomination one has to dumb down so that one can say all the right things to get that nomination.

Posted by cm | June 4, 2008 10:35 PM

This is why so many Republicans are going to be attracted to Barack Obama. Feel free to share with undecided friends around the country. http://acropolisreview.com/2008/04/top-reasons-to-give-barack-obama-your.html

Posted by Jean | June 5, 2008 2:05 AM

"It's a nice theory..." because it's in fact a true theory. And McCain's on record advocating against disbanding the Iraqi army and cashiering the Ba'athist elite; AND listening to General Shinseki at the time it would have made a difference.

Obama will probably follow about the same course as McCain would in Iraq, and will most likely win the election. But if he loses, it will be because of the kind of overconfidence and underestimation of McCain's appeal in evidence here.

Posted by robert powell | June 5, 2008 3:34 AM

'"It's a nice theory..." because it's in fact a true theory. And McCain's on record advocating against disbanding the Iraqi army and cashiering the Ba'athist elite; AND listening to General Shinseki at the time it would have made a difference.'

If he listened to Shinseki, did he want to implement the draft or call off the war? You couldn't follow Shinseki's advice without one or the other. Or was it just hollow posturing to cover his ass.

Posted by Njorl | June 5, 2008 9:46 AM

Actually, Njorl, he called for spending the money to increase the size of our forces right away, and paying for it with tax increases on the wealthy. As a matter of fact, so has Obama.

It's misleading to insist that we need a draft, which would be counterproductive to military effectiveness. This country is easily capable of fielding an all-volunteer military big enough to do this, and most any other reasonably likely job. In 2003 we had about three million people in uniform. If the idea was to do things correctly, we had the people to do it as Shinseki knew--otherwise he wouldn't have suggested "several hundred thousand".

Posted by robert powell | June 5, 2008 10:18 AM

So Robert, McCain was for having the war in a decade or so, when the measures he supported would create a military large enough? No, he was posturing to cover his ass.

Posted by Njorl | June 5, 2008 10:30 AM

So Robert, McCain was for having the war in a decade or so, when the measures he supported would create a military large enough? No, he was posturing to cover his ass.

Posted by Njorl | June 5, 2008 10:38 AM

It's a nice theory, but I don't think it's a true theory.

Since when do republicans believe in testable theories? Isn't that the truthiness of being a faith-based republican?

By the way, what was that thing about insanity is repeating the experiment?

Posted by Perception Managers | June 5, 2008 8:51 PM

Like John Kerry said in 1972, how you can ask a guy to be the last guy to die for a mistake? The War in Iraq was such a bad decision that no decision short of stopping, pulling out, and returning home, will in any way, shape, or form make up for such a bad decision.

Posted by TC | June 6, 2008 1:56 AM

Njorl--
With all due respect, you don't have any idea whether or not McCain was "posturing to cover his ass". Neither do I.

I do know that it was possible in 2003 to field a much larger force if Rumsfeld hadn't been hell-bent on applying the tactics that were successful in Afghanistan to Iraq, where they were patently unsuitable.

Posted by robert powell | June 6, 2008 4:13 AM

"I do know that it was possible in 2003 to field a much larger force if Rumsfeld hadn't been hell-bent on applying the tactics that were successful in Afghanistan to Iraq, where they were patently unsuitable. "
Posted by robert powell

The previously prepared plans (OPLAN 1003-98 and Desert Crossing), which Shinseki endorsed, called for prolonged deployment of between 385,000 and 500,000 troops for multiple years. That would entail dedicating between 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 troops to Iraq for several years. The size of the regular army was just 480,000. The whole active duty military is just 1.4 million. Combining all active duty and reserves of all branches you get only 2.9 million, most of whom do not have the training to act as an army of occupation, and could not be spared from other duties. It was not possible to implement quickly without a draft which would provide replacement troops for occupation ~15 months after the invasion. If McCain wasn't posturing to cover his ass, he was demonstrating his ignorance.

Posted by Njorl | June 6, 2008 10:17 AM

Njorl--
You're entitled to your opinion. In mine, McCain like most others at the time figured on the lower of the two numbers for a shorter time than we've ended up with. We had a number of appropriate units sitting on their butts in places like Korea, Okinawa, and Germany in 2003 who, properly utilized, would likely have made reasonably quick stabilization and subsequent force reductions possible.

At the end of the day, the total number of forces is, within reason, less important than what they are tasked with doing. The Coalition forces in Iraq during 2003 were a lot more numerous than the "surge" which has had a clear positive effect. If they had been doing then what we're doing now, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Posted by robert powell | June 6, 2008 2:35 PM