John McCain writing for the Op‐​Ed page of the New York Times: “Isn’t it more likely that antipathy toward the United States in the Islamic world might diminish amid the demonstrations of jubilant Iraqis celebrating the end of a regime that has few equals in its ruthlessness?”


Iraq is now the “cause celebre” for jihadists worldwide. But inside the Beltway that’s neither here nor there, since our “war on terror” discourse has morphed into praising the gains of the surge, regardless of how “fragile and reversible” those gains may have been. But discussions on Iraq should not be about “who was right about the surge,” because that argument is premised on the false belief that we attacked the correct country. The root of the problem is that politicians like Senator McCain use the surge to deflect attention from their own complicity in diverting America’s resources away from those who attacked us on 9/11 by invading a country that did not.