McCain: Looking Wobbly

Its interesting to see the beginnings of a McCain backlash take shape. Yesterday he was rebuked by the top general in Iraq, who (for reasons that should be perfectly obvious to anyone paying attention) knows that more troops in Iraq is not an option for a host of good reasons. Today, CAP take a close look at McCains "dangerous vision", otherwise known as the plan to send another hundred thousand more troops. It has the benefit of being politically completely infeasible. And that is about the best which can be said about it. It is too early to say the wheels are coming off. But, frankly, McCain looks weaker this week than the week before last. 

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will deliver two major speeches today to prominent conservative political groups -- GOPAC and the Federalist Society -- in what is being billed as his assessment of the current state of conservatism and "how he would lead it." For an American public that just recently registered its utter dissatisfaction with the current course in Iraq, McCain's prescription for the future will be extremely unsatisfying. He has repeatedly called for an increase in U.S. troop levels, isolating himself from most national security experts and U.S. generals in Iraq. Yesterday, Gen. John Abizaid, the Commander of U.S. Central Command, rejected McCain’s calls for increased U.S. troop levels, informing him that he “met with every divisional commander, Gen. [George] Casey, the core commander, Gen. [Martin] Dempsey” and asked them if bringing “in more American troops now, [would] add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq and they all said ‘no.’” Escalation in Iraq would be a disastrous course for our nation's strategic security interests. Moreover, the overstretched American military does not have the manpower to provide more troops in Iraq. "He would just repeat the mistake of Vietnam," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution. "If McCain refuses to acknowledge that some wars can become simply unwinnable, he may be exposing a weakness in his thinking that ultimately deprives him of the presidency."