Watching Hardball today with a debate between Stolz of Votevets.org and a McCain shill from "Vets for Freedom" concerning Maliki's push for a timetable, I was struck by the strong indication that the McCain campaign is ready to take credit for Maliki pushing the U.S. troops out of his country.
Chris Matthews laid into the McCain shill, bringing up videos of Bush and McCain supporting a Korea-style decades long occupation of Iraq (that would never ever work) and asking him to explain how we could stay in Iraq for so long if the Iraqis wanted out. And the shill kept saying that this was 'political' talk by Maliki but that if formally asked to leave, we would, and it would all be because of the Surge.
It seems like the Mccain camp knows that selling a Korea style occupation of Iraq would only lead to getting destroyed in the election. So they will not try to sell the long term agreement that Bush has been working on. It looks like they will sell 'victory is just around the corner'. This is also evident by McCain saying he will balance the budget by winning the Iraq war.
I think that McCain may be setting up a fall campaign hail mary of adopting more or less Obama's position on Iraq. But claiming that McCain's withdrawal is based on "victory" through the surge, while Obama's withdrawal is based on "surrender". But basically, blurring the lines of their respective Iraq policy. That may be why McCain's people pressed the media on Obama's Iraq statements so hard, because they are planning to sell "pulling out troops based on victory, which may be as early as a couple years," while condeming Obama for a "hardline 16 month withdrawal based on defeat". Obama's statement on refinement on the timetable is cutting into their coming Iraq shift.