Matthew Yglesias (July 22, 2008) - McCain's Surge of Time Travel (Foreign Policy)

Is there any way to make sure CBS News has this in their hands before they air the interview tonight?

Posted by southpaw | July 22, 2008 5:32 PM

i think it's clear that John McCain is just not smart enough to understand these sorts of complicated situations. He's a moron. whether that's because he was always a moron or because of rapidly onsetting Alzheimers is unknown, but either way it's frightening.

Posted by raft | July 22, 2008 5:40 PM

Huh. I'm actually learning something here. The timeline seems to be rather different from what I thought it was.

Posted by Ted | July 22, 2008 5:42 PM

It not that he's not smart enough, although that's a legitimate question at this point. It's that he doesn't care. The facts are available, and he could make a real case without this distortion, but he simply doesn't care enough about facts to make sure that he gets stuff like this right and that his talking points fit into a larger narrative.

McCain may or may not be smart, but it's become very clear that he definitely is intellectually lazy.

I'd argue with only a hint of snark that this is why our press loves him.

Posted by dannity | July 22, 2008 5:44 PM

Okay, now that I have been educated about the true timeline, let me say that I think the truth isn't going to matter much in this case.

This is an instance where the emotional logic of recent history is going to matter more than trivial things like dates. In particular, there's going to be a really strong feeling among tv journalists that "McCain deserves some credit for taking risks on this issue." It's a feeling strengthened by the fact that the guy is old, and probably going to lose. He's got to get credit for something, and "the surge" is the most plausible entry in the competition right now. Plus it fits the mavericky narrative.

So good luck with this "truth" thing you and Spencer are peddling, Matt. But I'll be surprised if it can make a dent in the narrative.

Posted by Ted | July 22, 2008 5:49 PM

matthew, of course mccain knows what the "surge" was: it was a marketing slogan intended to distract from the strategic fiasco that was this little piece of juvenile adventurism.

that's exactly how he uses it, and since, as Ted rightly notes, conveying to the american public the difference between a marketing slogan and reality is not considered by most reporters to be part of their job description, it's not clear that this per se is a problem for mccain.

(and, of course, in this context, the "surge" worked to perfection, which is why mccain keeps harping on the success of the surge.)

PS. thanks to the miracle of the internets, i can note that i typed a comment on sunday morning at prof delong's place regarding this whole matter in which i said that maliki's position was probably not going to be a problem for mccain since he would claim that the surge was responsible for all that is good and nobel in the world....

Posted by howard | July 22, 2008 6:09 PM

This needs to get into the MSM's hands IMMEDIATELY.

Posted by Keith | July 22, 2008 6:29 PM

Looks like Matt's finally got a post that's managed to silence the wingnut Al.

Seriously, how do you possibly spin this?

Posted by Jake | July 22, 2008 7:12 PM

Seriously, how do you possibly spin this?

Posted by Jake

For real? Okay. Here's the warhawk spin from 10 seconds reflection:

Why, it was the experience of the commanders on the ground, the ones fighting the war, what were able to gain new insights in how to win. By listening to those commanders, and not liberal latte sippin non-military Communist secret Muslims like Barack Hussein Obama X, we developed The Surge strategy, which finally allowed us to both achieve and perpetually be on the way to achieving victory in Iraq! And None Of This Would Have Happened If You Surrendercrats Had Gotten Your Way!

Posted by El Cid | July 22, 2008 7:34 PM

I think this is actually not a strong point for us, and it's very easy to spin.

Matt's making a narrowly limited point about causation. We don't know that "the surge," by itself, saved Iraq.

But if you broaden the question out to a larger contrast, and ask, would Iraqis have been better off if we had started leaving early in 2007 . . . well, hypotheticals are always difficult, but it seems to me that you can make a good case that the answer is "no." It seems possible that they're better off now because we stayed to support a fragile, emergent security regime.

Don't jump down my throat on this. I was against the war from the beginning, and I want to get out rapidly now. But for the sake of candor, and in private, I don't mind saying that the other side might have a limited point here.

Posted by Ted | July 22, 2008 8:13 PM

Well, now I've seen everything.

Olberman claims that CBS scrubbed McCain's response from the televised interview. They kept Couric's question in, but replaced McCain's response with one he gave to another question.

That's some journalistic integrity, huh?

Posted by Jake | July 22, 2008 8:23 PM

Ted, here's the thing: i lament the large iraqi loss of life since our invasion and i don't think it balances against leaving saddam in place, so it's heart-sickening to contemplate.

but the way to make up for that is through reparations and assistance on the refugee problem, not by making the well-being of iraq the central focus of US national security policy.

we've spent, give or take, at least $150B (and american blood) since the surge was announced: what did that buy us?

that's the important question....

Posted by howard | July 22, 2008 8:25 PM

Well, yeah to everything Matt said, but to add this:

"the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn't make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed."

Ok. So here McCain basically says to criticize 'The Surge' is to debase & dishonor the US troops that have fought & died in service of this tactic. Exactly no-one is making that claim. It is possible to say that 'The Surge' has failed on the merits of its own initially stated goals, but that the troops performed valiantly.

At this point, McCain firmly plants his campaign strategy in the 'Turd Blossom' flower pot. All McCain has left is angry-old-man attacks on Obama.

McCain is a tired old man (yes, age does matter), continually playing 'catch-up' with his younger, more charismatic, dynamic opponent. The biggest story here should be: how is this even as close a race as it is?

Posted by raff | July 22, 2008 8:58 PM

The one question I rarely hear asked is where would we be now if for the past five years AQ had been focusing their recruitment efforts on sending fodder to Afghanistan instead of Iraq? Seems to me that if anyone was distracted from the fight in Afghanistan it was AQ. Better we “bleed them white” in Iraq where we could sustain it and our logistics were less vulnerable.

Now the Left wishes to pile in huge increases in troops and kill US soldiers in Afghanistan and NW Pakistan despite it's perfect defensive terrain, having no idea where the Left's "6 really bad guys who need ACLU lawyers" are, and logistic supplies being almost completely at Pakistan's mercy. The Paks cut us off, and Obama's choices come down to pulling all but 5,000 out of Afghanistan in retreat and bomb villages from the air - or wage a war that Starts in Karachi and pushes through a 3 million man military with advanced weaponry and citizen guerillas

Posted by chris ford | July 22, 2008 9:00 PM

Is it really possible to do regression analysis on this? We know, for certain, that Saddam Hussein was not in the process of committing genocide (by we I am limiting the discussion to the non-insane). We know that the violent death rate has skyrocketed.

What portion of the decreasing violence is due to the escalation? What portion is due to events that pre-date the surge? What portion is owed to 17' blast walls?

What portion of the violence is due strictly to the presence of the Christian Army of Occupation?

Those questions aren't nearly so easily answered. Which is why the idiot warmongers (yep, those guys again) simply claim 100% for the surge and leave it at that. Without any WMD rationale, without any humanitarian benefits, and without anything even vaguely resembling a valid justification for attacking the people of Iraq it is the only thing they can pretend to have gotten right.

Posted by Not as stupid as Will Allen | July 22, 2008 9:10 PM

I agree with howard's point about priorities, and in fact, that seems to me the best way to counter arguments about the surge.

The argument about different causes of improvement is great, but I think it's only going to work for a pretty high-information audience.

When it gets to be September, it'll be time for us to start linking the cost of the war to economic troubles at home. "I have a plan to achieve our goals and bring our troops home, but McCain won't commit to a time frame; instead wants to give the Iraqis a blank check, an open-ended commitment to keep paying for their security."

Posted by Ted | July 22, 2008 9:17 PM

The Chris Ford comment embodies many of the most pernicious myths of the Right (Bush/ Cheney/ McCain).

No, “AQ” does not move their (few) people around like a WW2 general. The fighters in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan clearly are almost all local people, with some volunteers from abroad. (Possibly a greater percentage in Afghanistan than Iraq, but clearly not decisive.) So the “fodder” in both places is local. The Right is completely invested in misinterpreting the situation (read lying).

Posted by M. Carey | July 22, 2008 9:33 PM

Really? All those smart guys sitting around, and the best way they can think of to fight a small number of Al Qa'ida guys is to occupy the entire nation of Iraq? This is the result of the best strategic minds in history?

Posted by El Cid | July 22, 2008 9:37 PM

Following up the Olbermann critique of CBS -- it's not clear to me how troubling this is. Any journalists out there?

It appears that CBS cut McCain's factually inaccurate answer (which is in Matt's post), and replaced it with an answer to a different question.

Is that kosher? My understanding is that interviews are usually pretty heavily edited, but this does seem iffy. On the other hand, it's better than running the falsehood without comment.

Posted by Ted | July 22, 2008 9:39 PM

So we built a 'Berlin Wall' with the surge.

Pity the families divided by it, for their plight bleak, unless there's someone who an tear it down hidden in Iraq's future.

Posted by zic | July 22, 2008 9:44 PM

Ted,
Here's why it matters. It shows that John McCain is LYING. This wasn't some innocent gaffe like Iraq-Pakistan's shared border. This is a complete lie where McCain knew damn well the order of events.

It goes at McCain's integrity on foreign affairs and shows him to be a neocon ideologue willing to say anything to advance his agenda and be President.

If the media follow up on this and McCain doesn't correct himself and say he "misspoke", then he is in big trouble.

Posted by Elrod | July 22, 2008 9:59 PM

Come on..the guy is really old. Don't you have an uncle our aunt who can't remember where he lives? McCain can't remember anything that happened in Iraq.

Posted by Darren | July 22, 2008 10:03 PM

The one question I rarely hear asked is where would we be now if for the past five years AQ had been focusing their recruitment efforts on sending fodder to Afghanistan instead of Iraq?

Ah, the 'lump of terrorists' fallacy. Not that I dispute the general point that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, but even the non-Afghans who joined the muj in the 1980s were a tiny fraction of the total. There's not some expeditionary brigade that gets redeployed on 24 hours' notice when the orders come in.

So here McCain basically says to criticize 'The Surge' is to debase & dishonor the US troops that have fought & died in service of this tactic. Exactly no-one is making that claim.

I think it was Spackerman who pointed out over the weekend that arguing the success of The Surge™ has become a way for hawks to retroactively claim success for the entire Iraq operation from the beginning.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 22, 2008 10:09 PM

My understanding is that Obama said that the American troops performed brilliantly but there is no way of knowing whether or not the surge (troop increase) led to increased stability in Iraq because he doesn't have a crystal ball to look into the past. Honestly, it seems to me that he doesn't want to admit he was wrong when he predicted that the surge would increase sectarian violence in Iraq.

I also believe Al Qaeda is a global terrorist organization, existing in many places throughout the world including Iraq. But in reading some of the posts here, it appears that Matthew Y believes that they are all in Afghanistan. Is that viewpoint credible?

Posted by S. P. Gass | July 22, 2008 10:36 PM

McCain is geniunely scary now.

He is so wrong that it would be a danger to have him as President.

And it is so evident that McCain in his mind reinterprets reality so as to always make the war and military option the only way to succeed.

I am now more convinced than ever that if elected McCain would immediately take us to war in Iran.

Be afraid of a McCain presidency...very afraid...and work your tail off to get Obama elected.

Posted by cm | July 22, 2008 10:39 PM

I also believe Al Qaeda is a global terrorist organization, existing in many places throughout the world including Iraq.

I'd say Al Qaeda as a terrorist organization in essence committed mass suicide on 9/11 and has existed ever since then as little other than a brand.

A very poor brand in 2008.

We used to have someone who would hammer on and on about how Al Qaeda and Iran were in bed together. Enemy of my enemy and all that. Bin Ladin and what's left of the leadership try really hard to come off as pan-Muslim, big tent guys but all they attract are the most repelent, nasty, self-righteous, zealots that repulse everyone they come in contact with.

During Israel's last invasion of Lebanon, what you would call the AQ jihadist netroots were up in arms. Guess what side they were on? Not Hezbollahs. I guess they weren't squarely on the IDF's side but they were completely pissed that Muslim's were backing the "persian-zionist conspiracy". They hate Shia, they have everyone who doesn't practice religion exactly as they do, they just aren't a viable political or any sort of force going forward. No one wants them around anymore.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 22, 2008 10:55 PM

I was wrong at 5:49 pm when I said TV news would never be able to handle this story.

Just saw Joe Klein and David Gergen on Anderson Cooper, and they vigorously and clearly dismissed the quote Matt cites, for the same reasons cited by Spencer and Matt.

Maybe this is a case of great minds think alike. But to me, it looks like good passing work by the home team.

Posted by Ted | July 22, 2008 11:00 PM

Ed, thanks for your comment. I hope you're right, but don't know that they're done in just yet. Obama doesn't seem to think so given his rhetoric about Afghanistan. I support McCain and/or Obama in tracking down the remaining elements.

Posted by S.P. Gass | July 22, 2008 11:43 PM

the biggest question here, to me, and to everyone who even has a cursory knowledge of this campaign and thus knows McCain doesn't have the intellectual capacity to understand the nuances of policy in a complex region, is:

Why did CBS cover it up? why would they go to the trouble of replacing a PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE'S utterly false answer to a question posed by one of their reporters with a totally separate answer to another question. they are effectively deceiving their views into thinking McCain answered a question that he didn't have an answer for. not only did they cover up a false answer, but they fabricated another answer to replace it!

it would be like Katie Couric asking Barack Obama if he believed the Iraq War was a good idea, and instead of showing his actual answer ("no, i opposed it from the beginning blah blah"), they cut it out and replaced it with him answering "Yes" to a totally separate question.

this is journalistic deception at it's very highest and most malicious. CBS should be castrated on every network and in every paper for months for this. a base offense against the profession.

Posted by BA | July 23, 2008 12:13 AM

I support McCain and/or Obama in tracking down the remaining elements.

Well, Ok, I don't want to be on record as not wanting to do that.

All I'm saying is they are their own worst enemy. Back in 2003, a group of AQ beards took up residence in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. What they did was act like asses and scream at everyone that their impious nature was what led to them living in a garbage heap. It lasted a matter of days and Lebanese Fatah riddled them with bullets to everyone's relief.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 23, 2008 12:35 AM

Near as I can tell the McCain narrative is now I hated Bush and every move he made in Iraq until I invented the Surge and took command. Elect me and I'll do the same on the Iraq/Pakistan border.

Posted by moondancer | July 23, 2008 1:09 AM

Read the following and you may learn something...

John McCain is drawing criticism for the following exchange with Katie Couric:

COURIC: Sen. McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What's your response to that?

MCCAIN: I don't know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening.

As Frederick Kagan wrote in September 2007: “Anbari tribal leaders did begin to turn against AQI in their areas last year before the surge began, but not before Colonel Sean MacFarland began to apply in Ramadi the tactics and techniques that are the basis of the current strategy in Baghdad.”

If McCain was saying that Col. McFarland's counterinsurgency approach "began the Anbar Awakening" then that's pretty much on the mark. The "surge" after all is often shorthand for both the addition of U.S. troops as well as the adoption of a counterinsurgency strategy.

Of course, the official "surge" was ordered by President Bush in January 2007--four months after the Awakening began. Some are pointing to this statement as proof that McCain gets "his facts all wrong", as Matthew Yglesias writes.

But Yglesias's colleague Marc Ambinder writes that a charitable reading of McCain's statement is "that the surge helped the Anbar Awakening to succeed because the shieks could actually be protected."

Indeed, the surge did not midwife the Anbar Awakening--it kept the Awakening from being strangled in the crib. Here's how the Washington Post characterized a November 2006 Marine intelligence report on Anbar:

The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there [...]

Moreover, most Sunnis now believe it would be unwise to count on or help U.S. forces because they are seen as likely to leave the country before imposing stability.

So two months after the Awakening began, Anbar looked hopeless. Yet Yglesias contends that the surge was not largely responsible for the progress in that province:

This specific timing issue aside, we can see here the larger point that McCain doesn't actually seem to know what the surge was. But the surge troops were overwhelmingly sent to increase the level of manpower in Baghdad (i.e., not where the Anbar Awakening happened)

But Fallujah--in Anbar--is about 30 miles west of Baghdad. That's the distance between Washington D.C. and Dulles airport. Might not U.S. forces killing terrorists in Baghdad have reduced the level of violence in Fallujah as well as 30 miles farther west in Ramadi?

Furthermore, two additional Marine battalions were sent to Anbar, and it wasn't until they were deployed and the counterinsurgency implemented that the Anbar Awakening flourished.

The Awakening, Kagan wrote,

proceeded slowly and fitfully for most of 2006 and, indeed, into 2007. But when Colonel John Charlton’s brigade relieved MacFarland’s in Ramadi and was joined by two additional Marine battalions (part of the surge) elsewhere in Anbar, the “awakening” began to accelerate very rapidly. At the start of 2007 there were only a handful of Anbaris in the local security forces. By the summer there were over 14,000. [...] The fact is that neither the surge nor the turn of the tribal leaders would in itself have been enough to turn Anbar around — both were necessary, and will remain so for some time.

Posted by Jack O'Malley | July 23, 2008 1:43 PM