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I recently had the unfortunate experience of reading this article penned by Senators Liebermann and McCain about General Patraeus's "slow victory plan" and the need to stay the course in Iraq.
In a weird sort of way, their argument is quite convincing, and the McCain-Lieberman strategy is perhaps the only viable one if you're goals are the following: to maintain American hegemony over the Arabian peninsula indefinitely, and, eventually, to spread the war into Iran (something neocons McCain and Lieberman, backed by the Israeli lobby, are strongly pushing for).
If these are the goals, then indeed it would make little sense to begin withdrawing troops now.
If, on the other hand, your goal is to make America safe and to prevent further acts of terrorism, then the McCain-Lieberman strategy of a surge in troop numbers and an expansion of conflict is entirely counterproductive.
What progressives and non-interventionist conservatives should now fear most is a McCain presidency, which – now that he has almost total mainstream media sponsorship – is looking more and more inevitable each day.
Just look at the names on his foreign policy staff, which includes a long list of advisors associated with the American Enterprise Institute, including William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Eliot Cohen and other radicals who have been advocating for the last several decades the recolonization of the Middle East.
Also worrying is McCain’s inclusion of Henry Kissinger, who has done this country (and much of the world) only harm for the last 40 years.
And the fact that he is considering for his running mate Senator Lieberman – one of the staunches supporters of an immediate attack on Iran — should scare us even more.
With a Vice President and a foreign policy staff like this, it's hard to imagine my old pal McCain exercising any restraint in issues of war and intervention.
Unlike Ron Paul, McCain has no significant public following to bolster his campaign. But he does seem to have garnered the support of late from the mainstream media — and lucky for him, it is they who have the first and final say in who will reign as the next President of the United States.
