Robert Reich has come to the came conclusion I have about John McCain’s reasons for calling for more troops for Iraq. Earlier today, in the comments, I wrote:
McCain might be playing a political game here. Who ever is President in 2009 will have a real mess to deal with, and will have to face the reality that we must get out, but getting out will make things worse short term. He might be doing this for political cover should he be elected. In 2009 he could say that we are in this mess because he was not listened to in 2006 when he called for more troops.
Robert Reich says pretty much the same thing this evening:
I think McCain knows Iraq is out of our hands – it’s disintegrating into civil war, and by 2008 will be a bloodbath. He also knows American troops will be withdrawn. The most important political fact he knows is he has to keep a big distance between himself and Bush in order to avoid being tainted by this horrifying failure. Arguing that we need more troops effectively covers his ass. It will allow him to say, “if the President did what I urged him to do, none of this would have happened.”
Under no circumstances will this administration ever withdraw troops. Their plan is to stay in Iraq till 2010. If McCain advocates increasing our troops then he has irrevocably tied himself to this president without whose support he can never win the GOP nomination. By wanting to send more troops to Iraq it is clear that McCain doesn’t understand the consequences of sending more troops in the middle of a growing civil war. He doesn’t understand the level of chaos already there and that our presence contributes to the level of the growing chaos in Iraq.
McCain has always stood with this president and it will hurt him the way it hurt the repug candidates who lost their seats this year due to their support of this president, and his failed Iraq war policies. Getting out may make things worse in the short term but we can have a phased withdrawal of troops in one year as Senator Kerry has suggested. By McCain is also against that. He is against any kind of withdrawal. Also I have never heard McCain stress the need for serious diplomacy.
He has never suggested that the administration put more pressure on Al Maliki to deal with the Shi’ite militias and the death squads. He has never stressed the need to control the growing influence of Al Sadr on Al Maliki. McCain is an opportunist who will support the president’s policies as long as he sees a benefit in it. The moment the support of this president becomes a liability to his chances of getting the GOP presidential nod he will drop him. That’s why he attacked Kerry during the joke non-controversy even though he knew that Kerry was talking about Bush and not the troops. He thought it would benefit him.
Top Marine: Troops under too much strain
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/22/us.marines/index.html
[snip]
“One is reducing the requirement [of a set deployment time]. The other is potentially growing the force for what we call the long war,” Conway said.
If McCain is trying to position himself away from Bush for 2008, this gambit will certainly fail.
The cupboard is bare. There are no more troops and those that are left are worn out – along with their equipment.
We don’t have any troops to deploy unless we redeploy trops who just got back. They are not equipped as troops leave their vehicles and support equipment behind. The equipment is worn out and needs to be replaced. There isn’t the equipment available or money to buy new equipment.
The land forces are broken. Leaving them in Iraq degrades our forces daily.