Originally published in the Valley News on December 14, 2007
Always in It to Win It
During the 1990s, now a senator of national celebrity, McCain at first sounded a similar note on prospective U.S. military involvement in the Balkans. However, once NATO forces began air strikes against the regime of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, McCain became a stout proponent of using force to curb Serbian aggression against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. He even criticized U.S. President Bill Clinton for ruling out the use of ground troops in the region.
In the end, what emerges from McCain's stances on past foreign conflicts is less a litmus test on how and when the U.S. should intervene abroad than a dedication to achieving victory once war has begun.
"As a general principle, once a country makes a decision to go to war, I think Sen. McCain thinks it should do whatever is necessary to win that war," said Mark Salter, a longtime McCain aide and co-author of five books with him. "Once you engage in a military enterprise you must be committed to its success, and you don't rule out anything, unless it's unlawful warfare."
McCain's dogged pursuit of victory in Iraq is tempered by his convictions — staked out clearly and oft repeated — on military ethics. Tortured by his North Vietnamese captors during his five-and-a-half years as a POW, McCain is a staunch opponent of the latitude for harsh interrogation methods espoused by the Bush administration. He is the only one among the leading Republican candidates to categorically state his opposition to waterboarding, a form of torture that simulates drowning.
On the broader array of challenges that will likely greet the next president from abroad, McCain says he favors an aggressive foreign policy bolstered by strong alliances. In his Foreign Affairs essay, he cites the need for rebuilding strong ties with Europe and with the democracies — Australia, Japan, South Korea, — ringing China and North Korea. On the question of Iran, McCain says he would institute harsher political and economic sanctions, with or without the support of the U.N., and that a military strike "must remain on the table."
Some critics see in McCain a reflexive militarism that could herald a series of troublesome foreign adventures should he win the White House. Matt Welch, of the libertarian Reason magazine and author of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, said McCain's family legacy — both his father and grandfather were Navy admirals, and one of his sons, Jimmy, is a Marine serving in Iraq — predisposed him to readily use force as an instrument of foreign policy.
"His father and grandfather were both four-star admirals in the Navy, and, more importantly, they were both outspoken advocates of the idea that the U.S. Navy is the glue that holds together the world, and it is the biggest single guarantor of democracy," Welch said. "He's reverted back to the family business, which is making the world safe through American might."
Welch added, "I think Americans who are worried that we're overstretched militarily should probably run, and not walk, away from a McCain candidacy."
Other Obstacles
Are New Hampshire voters running away from McCain and his support for continuing the war?
"Early on, it was hard," Salter said. "People were tired of the war — in New Hampshire, very much so." More recently, Salter said — as evidence has emerged that Bush's order to send 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq last January has, along with other factors, decreased violence — audiences have been more receptive. Democrats had pegged the troop surge, strongly advocated by the Arizona senator, as the "McCain Doctrine."
"I think he gets some credit for being the first guy to recommend the strategy, and for standing by this new plan, even though it was politically difficult for him," Salter said.
The strong opposition to continued American involvement in Iraq among independent voters might be less of a liability for McCain's campaign than some expect, political analysts say, since many independents, frustrated with the policies of the Bush administration, have drifted toward the Democratic candidates anyway.
"He staked everything on the surge, and in the short run, a lot of people said it was going to come back to bite him in the primaries," said Linda Fowler, a Dartmouth College professor of government. "It doesn't seem to have, in part because the level of violence and the level of American casualties are down. My guess is that it probably isn't helping him in New Hampshire, but it's probably stopped hurting him."
To be sure, McCain has other obstacles to contend with. Eight years have passed since the 2000 primary campaign, when his unscripted brand of retail politics and willingness to buck GOP orthodoxy fueled a maverick image that helped earn him his New Hampshire victory. In the current primary season, a number of factors have resulted in McCain's tumble from his position as the party's presumptive frontrunner to underdog status.
His support for immigration reform alienated Republican hardliners on the issue. His efforts to reconcile with the party's evangelical wing — last year McCain spoke at Liberty University, whose founder, the late Jerry Falwell, he once famously called an "agent of intolerance" — seem to have cost him the fondness of moderates while currying little favor among social conservatives. To many voters, his age is also a concern: If elected, McCain, at 72, would be the oldest president ever to take office (Ronald Reagan was 69 when inaugurated to his first term).
When it comes to the Iraq War, however, Ludlow Flower, an Orford resident and chairman of the Grafton County Republican Committee, said McCain's position, rather than being another weakness, is widely admired even among Republicans who don't plan on voting for him.
"Everyone that I can think of admires John McCain and his position on the war," Flower said. "They admire other qualities in other candidates, which is why they might plump for someone else. On the question of the war, everybody I know thinks that's his great strength."
But Jim Rubens, an Etna Republican who voted for McCain in the 2000 primary but is now Grafton County co-chair of Giuliani's campaign, said he found McCain — as well as the other Republican candidates — maddeningly vague on America's future course in Iraq.
"The surge has succeeded. Let's presume it did succeed; it appears to be. What next? What is the United States' strategy? What is the strategy behind the surge? I have never heard any candidate talk about the strategy behind the surge long term," said Rubens, a former state senator. "To say it's working today is nice, but I haven't heard anything about what will happen in five or 10 years."
McCain's Promise
In an interview, McCain said he was frustrated with the slowness of the Iraqi government to take the reins on peacekeeping and political reconciliation. But he refuses to set a deadline for those goals — on the contrary, McCain appears to reserve particular ire for any political maneuvering that could be seen as hamstringing the military effort. And questions about the concrete steps that remain between the fragile calm created by the troop surge and an eventual U.S. victory tend to trigger a short circuit that sends McCain back into grim prognostications about the results of failure.
McCain said that while he foresees "a very long war" with what he called "the forces of Islamic extremism," he does not want an endless U.S. presence in Iraq. "I think that within months, we can proceed with Iraqis taking over more and more of the military responsibilities, and American troops being drawn down," McCain said. But he also admits frank agnosticism about how long the Iraq War will last. "I don't know how long," he said.
Schotanus, McCain's old War College professor, said he personally believes the troop surge, while tactically astute, is "too little, too late."
In a recent interview, however, McCain dismissed the argument, which has gained ground even among some Republicans, that the United States should cut its losses and begin withdrawing.
"The same people who are saying that are the ones who seven months ago, when the surge started, were saying the war was lost," McCain said. "Now they're saying, 'Well, maybe you're having some success militarily, but you still don't have political progress.' They're right. We need more political progress. But the consequences of failure and withdrawal from Iraq can best be described a couple of weeks ago by the president of Iran..."
It was the same argument McCain had made in North Haverhill, in almost the same words.
At the North Haverhill stop, McCain spoke to a largely sympathetic audience — strongly Republican and sprinkled with veterans, including a row of V.F.W. Post 5245 members in wedge caps and blue jackets. As he concluded his stump speech, McCain, in his gravelly voice and stop-and-start oratory, struck what proved to be a resonant chord:
"A lot of people said I have no chance of being president of the United States, and that may be true. That may be true today.
"Every once in a while you have an experience that puts everything in the right perspective, and that happened to me about seven weeks ago, in a town-hall meeting in Wolfeboro. A woman stood up and said, 'Senator McCain, will you do me the favor of wearing a bracelet with my son's name on it?' Matthew Stanley. Matthew Stanley was 22 years old. He was killed in combat outside Baghdad just before Christmas last year. I said I would be honored to wear a bracelet with his name on it."
One of the many curious things about McCain is how his physical appearance — cancer-scarred face, torso still stiff from the torture he endured 40 years ago — is belied by his seemingly boundless reserves of energy and wit. This unflagging liveliness has led some observers of the current campaign to say that McCain — nicknamed The White Tornado during his years as an Arizona congressman — has more verve than younger candidates in the field.
While McCain's town hall events sometimes exude a somewhat melancholy second-time-around quality, he is still, undeniably, a phenomenon. It was not the first time he had told the story of Matthew Stanley and his mother on the campaign trail, but that didn't matter. The crowd was rapt.
McCain continued, "And then she said, 'I want you to promise me one thing. I want you to promise me that you'll do everything in your power to make sure my son's death was not in vain.' Well, my friends, that was my commitment to Matthew Stanley's mother, that's my commitment today, and I believe that's my commitment to the American people."
On that day in North Haverhill, McCain was met with a roar of applause.
Peter Jamison can be reached at pjamison@vnews.com or (603) 727-3234.