Maybe believes it. This means he can't tell Sunni (AlQ) from Shiite (Iran), who very much hate each other.
Maybe he's trying to convince us... but if that were the case, Lieberman wouldn't have embarassed him by correcting him, and his campaign wouldn't have released a statement that he 'misspoke'.
I think he believes it, or he confuses easily, or he's just plain rattled about it and trying like heck to make it sound right.
Either way, it's a completely unnecessary self-destruct at this point as the dems devour each other. Mccain might rattle easily when little facts come up during debates.