McCain And AQI

During his questioning of Gen. Petraeus, John McCain seemed to go out of his way to elicit from Petraeus the opinion that Al Qaeda in Iraq was still a significant threat. "Significant" is indeed how Petraeus labeled the danger, although Petraeus also used the adjective to refer to the diminution of the Al Qaeda threat since he last testified. McCain wanted it on the record that AQ was a critical combatant in Mosul, Iraq's Northern gateway. Petraeus was happy to oblige.

You will hear McCain make this point on the campaign trail: Gen. Petraeus and Osama Bin Laden agree, he says, that AL Q is a "significant" threat.... which is how McCain links the war in Iraq to the global war against terrorism. It will be interesting to see whether McCain also acknowledges the relatively contained and local nature of the threat -- the phrase Petraeusused, if I recall, was that Al Q is "holding on" in Mosul.

No word, yet, as to Petraeus's estimate of Al Q's threat relative to the threat posed by the Iranian "Special Groups," or Shia sectarianism.

A side note: No, Al Q is NOT an obscure Shia side group...

Comments

So McCain is pushing the Al Qaeda angle again. (I'm assuming he's finally figure out who they are as compared to Shiite extremists.)

Am I the only one that is finding McCain's positions on Iraq to be virtually indistinguishable from Bush's and Cheney's? If we just hang on for 2, or 5, or 10 more years...

Posted by LFC | April 8, 2008 11:17 AM

Or even 100!

Posted by Steve LaBonne | April 8, 2008 11:29 AM

What do you expect from a war monger like McCain? With war mongering buddies like Bush, Cheney, Patreus, McCain will continue his 100 year war.

The bottomline is McCain wants what Bin laden wants.. that is continued presence of our troops in Iraq so that Laden can grow his presence and recruiting everywhere.

Posted by Ed | April 8, 2008 11:37 AM

McCain is a clueless angry old man who should be kept away from anything that involves war related decisions. He does not even know shia, sunni and who does what!

Posted by Amy | April 8, 2008 11:44 AM

Atrios is right on point when he says:

"I've read the numerous attempts by conservatives and mainstream journalists to complain that somehow people are being mean and unfair to Huggy Bear by taking his "100 years" comment "out of context" or "distorting it" or whatever. For the life of me I don't understand what their complaint is. His point was perfectly clear, that he's happy to stay in Iraq as long as it takes to "win" and then he's happy to stay there even longer.

They could perform some actual journalism by asking him just how long Americans should keep getting killed in Iraq, just how much taxpayers' money he's willing to spend or how many American lives should be lost in Iraq just so we can get to the point when no more American lives are being lost in Iraq."

Posted by true | April 8, 2008 11:50 AM

Ugh, Ambinder. Stop falling into that trap of interchanging Al-Qaeada in Iraq and al-Qaeda. Not the same thing. The name "al-Qaeda in Iraq" is a nickname, adopted to establish that they claim allegiance to bin Laden's group.

I suppose you could argue that it's just semantics, but it lends to people assuming that "al Qaeda" were there all along, and that as a result this war was started for the right reasons.

At this point, it's probably expanded as a group that is neither techinically al Qaeda nor only in Iraq, but we need to make sure that people don't slip into saying "Hey, even this liberal blogger guy thinks that al Qaeda and Iraq were linked!"

Posted by socctty | April 8, 2008 12:00 PM

McCain AGAIN confused Shiite and Sunni. Pathetic. And c'mon, which is it: ignorant, senile, or pushing a Big Lie?

Worse yet is that the media doesn't bat an eye. They correct things for him, they note the mistake but dismiss it as a gaffe or mispeaking . . . but he's doing it over and over and over and over.

Just imagine if Obama did the same thing.

And this foreign policy thing is supposed to be McCain's STRONG area ????

Unbelievable.

Posted by SamSinister | April 8, 2008 12:33 PM

I must admit on seeing McCain confuse (again) AQI as a Shia group I nearly threw my remote at the set. It seemed his correction was not really a correction but an admission that it really doesn't matter. Shia, Sunni or anything else...

My God!!

What in the world is this alphabet soup of "current enemies".

Criminals, Special groups, Aqi, sectarian groups, insurgents, militias, iranian backed blah blahs,,

We created half if not more of the mess especially the ability for Iran influence we now fret over.

I have now come to the conlcusion that with McCain it really doesn't matter about such details of whether AQi is Shia or Sunni. He boldly told Russert on Meet the Press that he would invaded Iraq to topple Saddam even if he knew beforehand there was no WMD threat. It certainly did not matter what AQi was then (i.e. non-existent)so why does it now?

Why this is not more disturbing to people and gets little press is beyond me. The DEMS distort his "100 years" statement and leave the obvious "i would have toppled Saddam and put us in the mess even knowing there was no imminent threat" alone.

The end game of Iraq is clearer to me at least. The country will struugle for years if not decades establishing who is in control. Whenever we leave we will not be able to control who comes out on top....and will ironically miss the former evil tyrant Saddam for the relative stability he offered in combination with his sheer evilness.

Listening to the hearing and learning of the Iraqi swelling treasury on high oil prices we should be appalled that the taxpayers are still footing 3 billion a week.

McCain has convinced me he is simply now too old (and "unsharp") to be the President. God forbid he has more currently unknown people whispering is his ear to set policy and correct his failing memory. POTUS requires more than a history of bravery, patriotism and courage under fire. I'm ready for competence regardless of ideology.

Competence gets us through managing the terror threat, domestic catasrophy like Katrina, and reasonable economic policy good for the whole country. WHile a good GOP candiddate could do that it's not this one. And compentency is now my minimum bar which either Obama or Clinton exude regardless of ideology.

I respect McCain and his service but I would no more vote for a man a view as already on the verge of doddering old man than I would vote for my 8 year old to run the country.

God help us by 2012.

Posted by ToneDeaf | April 9, 2008 11:12 AM