Juan Cole: McCain owns the Iraq war -- for better or worse
John McCain campaigned in Michigan this weekend on national security issues and Iraq, insisting that the United States is closing in on victory in Iraq and needs time to complete the mission. He spoke about Iraq in the small town of Clawson, telling voters in Tuesday's Republican primary, "We are winning this. Let's pursue it to the end together and stop this bitter partisanship."
Republican voters seem to trust the former prisoner of war on matters military. Ironically, the foremost proponent of the surge in the 2008 field, the man who proclaimed a willingness to stay in Iraq for a century if necessary, has even emerged as the favorite of those Republicans who express anxiety about the Iraq war and question the Bush administration's conduct of same. McCain won heavily among that constituency in New Hampshire last Tuesday, and a Detroit Free Press poll found that McCain led former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by more than 15 percentage points among the nearly one-quarter of Michigan Republicans for whom Iraq is the No. 1 issue. Looking past Tuesday's primary, however, McCain's strategy of declaring an ongoing victory is extremely risky. January has already seen a sharp uptick in violence, leaving dozens of Iraqi civilians and 20 U.S. soldiers dead since the beginning of the year, with the potential to bring into question the Arizona senator's credibility if the violence continues at that rate.
In December, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of ground forces in Iraq, had cautioned that "what has been achieved here remains tenuous and is still fragile in a number of areas." His prudence was vindicated the week after New Year's Day when Iraqi insurgents killed nine U.S. troops in two days. The deaths came in the course of a U.S. push against radical Muslim guerrillas in Salahuddin and Diyala provinces. In the latter, U.S. troops entered a booby-trapped house while pursuing guerrillas, and when the bombs detonated they killed six soldiers and wounded four. On Saturday, a bomb killed one U.S. soldier and wounded four while they were operating in the northern province of Nineveh. In all of December, 23 U.S. soldiers had died in action, whereas by mid-January the toll was already 19....
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Republican voters seem to trust the former prisoner of war on matters military. Ironically, the foremost proponent of the surge in the 2008 field, the man who proclaimed a willingness to stay in Iraq for a century if necessary, has even emerged as the favorite of those Republicans who express anxiety about the Iraq war and question the Bush administration's conduct of same. McCain won heavily among that constituency in New Hampshire last Tuesday, and a Detroit Free Press poll found that McCain led former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by more than 15 percentage points among the nearly one-quarter of Michigan Republicans for whom Iraq is the No. 1 issue. Looking past Tuesday's primary, however, McCain's strategy of declaring an ongoing victory is extremely risky. January has already seen a sharp uptick in violence, leaving dozens of Iraqi civilians and 20 U.S. soldiers dead since the beginning of the year, with the potential to bring into question the Arizona senator's credibility if the violence continues at that rate.
In December, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of ground forces in Iraq, had cautioned that "what has been achieved here remains tenuous and is still fragile in a number of areas." His prudence was vindicated the week after New Year's Day when Iraqi insurgents killed nine U.S. troops in two days. The deaths came in the course of a U.S. push against radical Muslim guerrillas in Salahuddin and Diyala provinces. In the latter, U.S. troops entered a booby-trapped house while pursuing guerrillas, and when the bombs detonated they killed six soldiers and wounded four. On Saturday, a bomb killed one U.S. soldier and wounded four while they were operating in the northern province of Nineveh. In all of December, 23 U.S. soldiers had died in action, whereas by mid-January the toll was already 19....