n a speech he's about to give shortly at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Ohio, Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, will for the first time talk about a specific date for when he envisions direct American military involvement to be over in Iraq.
It's January, 2013. By then, he says, American combat involvement will be over and most U.S. troops back home.
A staunch defender of the war in Iraq and an ardent advocate for last year's military surge, even before the Bush administration decided on it, McCain's surprising remarks this morning are an early indicator of a significant shift in the former fighter pilot and POW's stance on the controversial and unpopular war.
And it's a theme he's likely to hit hard, and perhaps even modify further, as the general election campaign unfolds, contrasting it with the Democrat's sharper withdrawal.
Maybe you remember during their most heated debate exchange of the Republican primary season, McCain going right after former Gov. Mitt Romney for even hinting at a vague timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals because the Arizona senator alleged it would be taken by the enemy as a sign of surrender and a date they need only await.
How times change, now that McCain has the GOP nomination sewed up and confronts an unpopular war, an unpopular president of his own unpopular party, a string of Democratic successes in....
...special House elections, perceptions of a struggling economy and early Democratic attacks from both Sen. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that a McCain Administration would only be a Bush III.
According to excerpts obtained by The Times' Maeve Reston, McCain uses an imaginative speech construction today not to announce any dramatic change in his proposed policies regarding Iraq and what he once described as a possible 100 year deployment of U.S. troops. Instead, he describes "what I would hope to have achieved at the end of my first term as President."
Here's the optimistic scenario he will describe:
"By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced.
"Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders.
"The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role.
"The threat from a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced but not eliminated. U.S. and NATO forces remain there to help finish the job, and continue operations against the remnants of al Qaeda.
"The Government of Pakistan has cooperated with the U.S. in successfully adapting the counterinsurgency tactics that worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan to its lawless tribal areas where al Qaeda fighters are based. The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants.
"There is no longer any place in the world al Qaeda can consider a safe haven. Increased cooperation between the United States and its allies in the concerted use of military, diplomatic, and economic power and reforms in the intelligence capabilities of the United States has disrupted terrorist networks and exposed plots around the world. There still has not been a major terrorist attack in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001."
Of course, all this is also premised on McCain not only imagining but actually pulling off a general election victory on Nov. 4.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/05/mccainiraq.html
