McCain’s Secret Iraq Exit Strategy
While the Democratic presidential candidates plan a two-division-a-month withdrawal strategy beginning in the Spring of 2009, John McCain cheneys his way across the Mideast talking of keeping American troops in Iraq for a century.During a town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire 1/3/08, McCain told a crowd of two hundred that it “would be fine with” him if the U.S. military stayed in Iraq for “a hundred years“:
Q: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years — (cut off by McCain)
McCAIN: Make it a hundred.
Q: Is that … (cut off)
McCAIN: We’ve been in South Korea … we’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans …
Q: [tries to say something]
McCAIN: As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. That’s fine with me, I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al-Qaeda is training and equipping and recruiting and motivating people every single day.
Two-thirds of the American electorate see the Iraq fiasco as unsustainable and draw a direct line to the depressed dollar, soaring federal deficits and a growing subservience to Chinese cash. McCain echoes the Veep’s “So?” and promises more quagmire with honor.
But McCain is one of our most knowledgeable foreign policy leaders – his senior confusion about Shiite Iran training Sunni Al-Qaeda notwithstanding.
So how about some “Straight Talk” from the old soldier? Once in office, how would the Iraq fiasco really play out?
“In an exclusive new index, [the magazine] Foreign Policy and the Center for a New American Security surveyed more than 3,400 active and retired officers at the highest levels of command about the state of the U.S. military. They see a force stretched dangerously thin and a country ill-prepared for the next fight.” (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4198)
"Today, the U.S. military is engaged in a campaign that is more demanding and intense than anything it has witnessed in a generation. Ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now entering their fifth and seventh years respectively, have lasted longer than any U.S. military engagements of the past century, with the exception of Vietnam. More than 25,000 American servicemen and women have been wounded and over 4,000 killed. Additional deployments in the Balkans, on the Korean Peninsula, and elsewhere are putting further pressure on the military’s finite resources. And, at any time, U.S. forces could be called into action in one of the world’s many simmering hot spots—from Iran or Syria, to North Korea or the Taiwan Strait.
"In all, more than 3,400 officers holding the rank of major or lieutenant commander and above were surveyed from across the services, active duty and retired, general officers and field-grade officers. About 35 percent of the participants hailed from the Army, 33 percent from the Air Force, 23 percent from the Navy, and 8 percent from the Marine Corps. Several hundred are flag officers, elite generals and admirals who have served at the highest levels of command. Approximately one third are colonels or captains—officers commanding thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines—and 37 percent hold the rank of lieutenant colonel or commander. Eighty-one percent have more than 20 years of service in the military. Twelve percent graduated from one of America’s exclusive military academies. And more than two thirds have combat experience, with roughly 10 percent having served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both.
"More than 80 percent of the officers say that, given the stress of current deployments, it is unreasonable to ask the military to wage another major war today. Nor did the officers express high confidence in the military’s preparedness to do so. For instance, the officers said that the United States is not fully prepared to successfully execute such a mission against Iran or North Korea."
Over forty percent agree with the statement: “the demands of the war in Iraq have broken the U.S. military.”
Nearly 90 percent say that they believe the demands of the war in Iraq have “stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin.”
And therein lies the secret McCain exit strategy.
If McCain wins the 2008 election, he will continue a Bush-Petraeus surge-forever policy until some external new crisis forces him to redeploy the troops to a more urgent region.
There will be a new, more urgent war, sooner or later, and if John McCain lives to turn 80 in the White House, then on his watch he will have found an “honorable” excuse to redeploy our military to another war. Perhaps it will be another front in the thousand-year War on Terror. But sooner or later, Iraq’s security will have to be turned over to its neighbors without the massive presence of US military forces.
Regardless of the timing of the Iraq exit, the cost to America will likely approach $3 Trillion and the damage to the US economy and the US dollar will be irrecoverable. Don't believe it? Listen to Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Labels: Iraq Iran al-qaeda McCain economy
posted by DanZ @ 11:49 AM
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