John McCain and U.S. Foreign Policy

Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has been highly rated in the vital areas of national defense and security for Americans, higher than either of his two Democratic rivals for the White House. Since our president serves as “commander in chief” of the armed forces, he or she wields incredible power in the world, so the foreign policy questions are crucial for America as well as the entire globe.
With deep respect for the Senator’s prior military service for this country, his inspiring survival story, we must consider that neither flying combat aircraft over Hanoi nor suffering five years’ captivity in an enemy prison necessarily make the sufferer wise on defense.
Despite his military record, Sen. McCain’s published foreign policy views reflect a continuation of our current President’s inept global strategy. McCain simply continues George Bush’s rash belligerence abroad. Consummate true believer, he’ll stay there as long as it takes to “win.”
McCain feels we have failed in Iraq ONLY because we didn’t go all out in the first place when we invaded Iraq. But the good Senator forgets “shock and awe” in March and April 2003, and the later battle of Fallouja — this was our battle of Algiers. He trumpets his early support of Bush’s “surge” believing these reinforcements have turned the tide there. Recent reports indicate this is not the case, and the surge has also been reduced by British and Australian pull-outs. Now we’re stuck in the fifth year of an unsavory, bloody occupation.
Sen. McCain won’t consider the competing geo-political idea that the next president could choose NOT to go harder in Iraq — we could pull out of the Mesopotamian mud by the end of 2009. McCain falls into more of the deadly Cheney-Bush illogical thinking when he stresses how the sacrifices of our 4000 war dead mean we have to stay. We can expect waves of surges for the next hundred years from the Arizona Senator.
Withdrawal from Iraq by late ’09 dishonors only the executive branch incompetents who thoughtlessly hurled our men there; while a judicious withdrawal will restore some of our moral stature around the world and give our armies time to heal. Pulling out of Iraq does NOT require leaving the entire Middle East nor does it have to feel like a defeat. Often we have two stupendous nuclear carriers cruising off the Strait of Hormuz guarding oil lanes (intimidating Iran?), or even three, and friendly Israel is a staunch military ally.
What does “win in Iraq” really mean to the Cheney-Bush-McCain troika and their followers? The neo-cons chose to disband Saddam Hussein’s army, but then banned these Sunni Baathists from participation in the political process of the “new” Iraqi government. John McCain did not protest this. After finally getting rid of Saddam Hussein, Bush suddenly said America next had to “install democracy” in Iraq. John McCain did not protest this policy.
Today we can ask, ‘how do you force a democratic government down the throats of traditionally competitive Arab desert tribes?’ Today, the new democratically-elected Iraqi leaders openly thumb their noses at us by lavishly welcoming the crazy Iranian President into Baghdad, while the past few days witness mortar attacks on our Green Zone redoubt. Can Sen. McCain see that our true contest is in the global war on terror (GWOT), not these posturing puppets on the Euphrates? Our enemy is NOT a country. Our enemy uses the internet and cell phones and text messages to communicate, and he hides openly among us all across the globe. McCain’s sadly simplistic to contend that “winning” in Iraq equates to victory in the GWOT against the West.
To continue trying to “win” in Iraq sustains an incredible strain on the US economy, already reeling for other reasons. This Three Trillion Dollar War has to stop not only because of the unbearable cost of American and Iraqi lives, but also because we are borrowing the war-funding from our own children. Twelve billion dollars a month is too much. The current Iraqi occupation is unsupportable financially and inexcusable morally.
In every US war we’ve ever had, we have had to raise taxes in order to pay for it. This is logical, and usually the government has also borrowed vast sums of money from the banks and the people. The Cheney-Bush crowd, however, not only CUT TAXES for the very wealthy, those most able to pay, but they also failed to ask sacrifices from the American people. We gave up tax revenues for the government while waging an unbelievably expensive war, yet asked for no sacrifices from the people! If they really believed this attack on one country would win the GWOT they’d demand parallel sacrifices from “the people” — how about gasoline rationing like W.W. II?
Sen. McCain would prolong our unsuccessful Iraqi occupation, and send more of our increasingly exhausted army there to fight. He’s such the Bush foreign policy clone that he’s incapable of cognizing the costs of our occupation debâcle. He also seems to have no ideas about how to pay for the next three trillion dollars of expenses, and he doesn’t dare demand sacrifice from the people to help the war. Sen. McCain has also spoken recklessly about Iranian impudence and nuclear intransigence, and recently kept saying “Iran” when context demanded “Iraq.” These are not senior moments, and many think a President McCain would countenance invasion of Iran.
With no new foreign policy ideas on how to wage the GWOT,or pull-out plans for Iraq, Senator McCain should remain in the U.S. Senate dispensing his wisdom as an elder statesman. America will be much stronger if we elect a leader who will extract our men from Iraq as expeditiously as possible, certainly by December 2009.