"They'll follow us home" and other McCain spin Posted by Jerry Mayer

So in tonight's debate, McCain said this (this is from my own ears, not from a transcript so caveat auditor)

“I am convinced that if we fail and we have to withdraw they will follow us home, it will be a base for Al Qaeda….there is no doubt in my mind that this will become a base for terrorism and there will be chaos in the region. "

And here we have yet again the Republicans planning for the "stab in the back" meme when we inevitably leave Iraq in a mess. Then, if there is ever a subsequent attack on these shores, not only will Republicans try to blame us for losing the war, but for making us less safe.

But this is just ignorance. The only thing empowering Al Qaeda in Iraq is our presence. The Iraqi people seem to hate Al Qaeda. It is, after all, Al Qaeda more than any other group that has engaged in a massive suicide bombing campaign that has bled all three major ethnic groups (although primarily Shia).

If we leave Iraq, McCain is right about one thing. There will be chaos in the country. But in the midst of it, things will quickly go badly for AQI. They cannot make a compromise with the majority Shia, and the Kurds hate them. Their support among Sunnis has never been strong. The Iraqis will take them out, faster and more brutally and more capably than we could. I suppose if no government establishes any civil order for more than a year in Anbar, we might see a small terrorist rump state develop, but even that would be short lived. There will be no Taliban-state in Iraq for any length of time.

And McCain was also right in his ringing (and rehearsed and recycled) line about "presidents don't lose wars, parties don't lose wars, nations lose wars." Yes, they do, wars that unwise presidents and corrupt and clueless parties choose, in this case.

Our loss in Iraq will be rightfully perceived as a grave defeat for America. But there is no victory plan worthy of the name, so we are destined for defeat, now or soon or in the long term. Ilan's blistering and prescient evisceration of Petraeus' coming report is spot-on. We are strong enough that we can choose the timing and the nature of our defeat. That is all the choice Bush has left us. In my work for the State Department, I think I've met well over 30 Iraqis here in Washington. I've shaken hands with mayors from each of the three main groups, and even some Chaldean Christian leaders from Iraq. And since 2003, they all asked me if we would stay. I have been warning them since 2004 that we might not. I want to retch every time I think that part of our leaving will mean that many of those people and their families will be lined up against a wall and shot (if they're lucky, without torture preceding that). Executed because they trusted George W. Bush and America to get this right.

When that happens, expect McCain and others to blame the Democrats for their deaths. However, it is this administration and the war supporters in both parties who really will have those brave Iraqis' blood on their hands.

Comments

[Zathras]

I think "caveat lector" is the phrase you're looking for.

I also think it's unwise to deceive ourselves about the likely short term consequences of an American withdrawal from Iraq. We all wish al Qaeda in Iraq's support among the Iraqi people, or more precisely among Iraq's Sunni Arabs, was minimal, but that probably isn't true. The Shiite militias that have great reason to hate the al Qaeda types are most effective conducting combat operations against lightly armed civilians; the Sunni Arab tribes in Anbar and elsewhere are standing up against al Qaeda's fighters only after many months of coaxing from the Americans and support from the American military.

I don't think it likely either that a terrorist ministate can be sustained in Iraq, but that is mostly because I expect an American withdrawal to leave Iraqi Arabs too consumed with killing one another to organize an international terrorist center -- in a country that unlike Afghanistan 10 years ago is within easy range of American airpower. We just shouldn't kid ourselves that what will follow in the wake of an American withdrawal is not likely to be very bad, worse for the civilians left in Iraq than what is happening now. I hope I'm wrong, because liquidation of the American commitment in Iraq is something we'll need to do regardless.

[Don Bacon]

The United States as a base for terrorism? You mean people from the united States would travel to other countries and blow stuff up and kill people? Mercenaries that would wantonly kill others for money? We must avoid this at all costs so elect Senator McCrazy. Hah. The hypocrisy is amusing, at least.

[Jerry Mayer]

I dunno Zathras. I'm writing about a country I've never been to, and don't speak the language, so my predictions from Iraq are not those of a leading expert (caveat lector indeed!), they are only better than the Bush administration's (what is Latin for faint praise?). But I do think that the Iraqis I have spoken with and read about are unlikely to be strong supporters of Al Qaeda or even tolerate a group that brings in foreign fighters to Iraq in large numbers. Iraq doesn't have a history of strict Salafi Islam, to put it mildly. The tensions that have arisen in Anbar and other provinces sometimes emerged not over terrorism per se but over the attempt to create a Salafi-rules civil order. That will exacerbate the moment we leave, I think.

"Worse" than now for Iraqi civilians is very bad indeed, but I fear you are correct, at least for a while.

[dsi r4]

No wonder McCain is sending his attack dogs up north to clean the records for this woman -for if the truth hits the fan --maybe the destruction of the republican party is not far behind ..oh I did missed to speak ...McCain and Palin are not republicans they are reformers who just happens to be running on the republican ticket.