This morning's Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on Iraq showed pretty decisively that the Bush administration's policies are made of straw. Their chief advocate in the Senate, John McCain, delivered an uninspired and somewhat risible defense of them. Here is the conclusion of John McCain's prepared remarks (PDF):
Congress must not choose to lose in Iraq. We should choose, instead, to succeed.
That's a measure of the depth of his thinking about the morass McCain helped the nation to get into. For him, it's simply a question of deciding to succeed. In McCain's world, others such as the Iraqis have no influence in the matter - unless we mistakenly choose to let them determine their own fate.
Then there's the problem that for McCain and other Republican apologists for the Bush policy, 'winning' is never clearly, consistently, and realistically defined. Here is McCain this morning trying to move the goalposts once again (emphasis mine):
Since the middle of last year, sectarian and ethnic violence, civilian deaths, and deaths of coalition forces have all fallen dramatically. This improved security environment has led to a new opportunity, one in which average Iraqis can, in the future, approach a more normal political and economic life. Reconciliation has moved forward, and over the weekend Sunni, Shia and Kurdish leaders backed the Prime Minister in a statement supporting his operation in Basra and urging the disbandment of militias...today, it is possible to talk with real hope and optimism about the future of Iraq and the outcome of our efforts there.
This paragraph sums up so much of the new Republican spin. First, it has always been possible to talk optimistically about Iraq; that is all that Bush and his GOP enablers have done since 2003. If they're ever skeptical about "progress" in Iraq, we only hear about it long after the fact - when, they say, optimism is again in order. Hence, McCain wants us to forget about the nasty failure in Basra less than two weeks ago. Instead, we're supposed to build our dreams upon a vague statement of support for Maliki this past weekend by several Sunni and Kurd leaders who are hostile to Moqtada al-Sadr.
Second, we have the lies. Iraqis have made virtually no progress on reconciliation in the last 15 months. It's the most basic fact of all, for Bush made reconcilation and the suppression of ethnic cleansing and violence in Baghdad the central goals of his "surge". Ethnic cleansing was essentially completed during the "surge", violence is sharply up again, and reconciliation is nowhere to be seen. McCain knows that of course, which is why he later doubles down on the lie: "The Iraqis must continue the reconciliation that has helped dampen violence over recent months." The Sunni "concerned citizens" are unreconciled with Maliki's government, so this is lavishly dishonest.
Third, we have goal posts careening all over the field. McCain is measuring "progress" over a span of 9 months, rather than 15. And "progress" consists merely in getting to the point where there's an opportunity at some unspecified stage in the future to approach a more (how much more?) normal life. Even though the original benchmarks of success were vague, McCain's latest version is beyond ridiculous.
His questioning of David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker was somewhat perfunctory and added little insight. It looked calculated to give the impression that McCain was asking tough and skeptical questions, though he accepted vague responses without demur. As noted already by Devilstower, McCain also appeared to be confused yet again about whether Al Qaeda is a Sunni or Shiite group.
After that incident, Mr. McCain told NBC News that “to think that I would have some lack of knowledge about Sunni and Shia after my eighth visit and my deep involvement in this issue is a bit ludicrous.”
And predictably, McCain sought to help Petreaus to blame continuing violence in Iraq upon Iran. However he ran short of time and his aspersions upon "the Iranian threat" merely trailed off hastily.
And then having finished with his performance, as Sen. Bayh later noted, John McCain got up and left the hearing (live-blogged here). So McCain wasn't around to hear David Petraeus announce that he'd pushed the champagne bottle to the back of his fridge in Iraq. Probably the prudent thing to do - though you have to wonder about the wisdom of bringing champagne there in the first place.