John McCain’s Empty Threat

The NYT has a front-pager this morning on the fact that "In Senate, Allies of Bush Attempt to Halt Iraq Vote." It describes a resolution offered by John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham that seeks to "set benchmarks for the Iraqi government and describe the troop increase as a final chance for the United States to restore security in Baghdad."

"Final chance?" Sounds serious. But is it? Consider McCain and Lieberman were at AEI earlier this month, warning, in the case of Senator McCain, that if we were to leave, it would be “the beginning of the end, in some respects” of Western civilization.

But say you're an adviser to Maliki, and you see these two offering a resolution that says this is your last chance, this is it, we'll pull the plug if you can't get it together. (Put aside the fact that there's no chance either of them would ever vote to actually cut off funding for the war, the only practical tool Congress has to stop it.) Then your researchers bring you their AEI presentation in which McCain says it's the beginning of the end of Western civilization if we leave.

Would you be worried? Would you think "Uh oh, if we don't meet all of the American objectives, John McCain and Joe Lieberman are going to stop supporting the war. Of course, in their own minds, leaving on those terms would mean the beginning of the end of Western civilization, but they still might do it!" Doubtful.

If John McCain and Joe Lieberman think the stakes are as high as they implied at AEI, then they should just say flat-out: We can't leave, no matter what, unless we achieve our goals. That's an honest position, although one I think profoundly misguided.

Of course, the American people wouldn't be too hot on such a proclamation. They certainly wouldn't be inclined to, say, elect someone who said that to be president. But consistency's never been McCain's strong point.

It's almost like the guy's running for president or something.