By Robert Schlesinger
In fairness, John McCain did not vow to keep us in Iraq for 100 years, but really that’s not the relevant number. The important number is nine — as in the number of years that President McCain could affect our national security policy.
McCain said that he would happily keep U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 years provided minor combat operations have ended (major ones, you’ll recall, ended in the spring of 2003). Fair enough. Instead of trying to twist McCain’s words for a talking point, Democrats should make him address the timeline he himself created. Would he keep them their for 100 years if they remain in combat? If not, would that qualify as a date certain? And if he simply refuses to answer on the basis of it being a hypothetical — well, it’s less hypothetical than discussing what he would do if peace breaks out.
But nothing President McCain does can lock us in to Iraq for 100 years. But what he could do is keep us there for nine — until 2017, when Jeb Bush or Chelsea Clinton or whomever takes their turn in the oval office. So then: Is McCain happy to keep U.S. troops under fire in Iraq until then?
I’m assuming that you disagreed on why we entered Iraq in the first place. At this point, it is a moot point anyways so everyone is looking at when we’re going to bring the troops home.
Look at it this way, we completely dismantled their government in 2003. Unfortunately, after doing that, it takes time to rebuild a government system. How much time we can only speculate at. The events will tell us when the government is ready, not a mark on the calendar. It takes even more time when we don’t give Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen our complete support. There is still a job to be done and unfortunately it is taking more time than our impatient society is committed to giving.
In my humble opinion, we cannot pull U.S. support out of Iraq without there being a stable government in place. Maybe you think that the Taliban was stable in Afghanistan and that the current regime in Iraq is ready to take the reins and control its populace. I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m ready to go back to Iraq or Afghanistan if need be, and do my part to rebuild a broken nation. And I’m not the only Soldier that thinks so.