Dark Star

In his latest post, Dick Morris says that the statement by al-Maliki which lines up with Obama's timetable for troop pullout knocks the legs out from under McCain.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has cut the legs out from under John McCain by basically endorsing Sen. Barack Obama’s troop-withdrawal plan.

Just when McCain had Obama on the defensive over the Democrat’s plan to surrender after we’ve won in Iraq, Maliki has made McCain look the naïf for opposing a timetable for withdrawal.

Unless McCain changes his approach, he’s lost the use of this issue. He can’t come out for staying in Iraq longer than the government we support wants.

The Republican needs to shift the debate to Iraq’s future. Neither Obama’s belaboring of his previous opposition to the war nor McCain’s attacking the Democrat’s opposition to the surge is relevant - both lines are history lessons best left in the classroom. What voters want to know is: What now?

McCain needs to hammer at one basic theme: that Obama’s pullout plan will lead to a third Iraq war. The Democrat wants to keep substantial numbers of troops next door, to go back into Iraq if necessary. McCain should stress that a premature withdrawal will lead to a collapse - losing the hard-won stability in Iraq, opening the door to an Iranian takeover and al Qaeda revival, and potentially forcing a new US invasion.

Obama isn’t a peace candidate, McCain can say - just an advocate of a deferred war. Just as the first President George Bush left the ingredients in place for a second war when he failed to depose Saddam Hussein in 1991, so Obama will fail to finish the job and invite yet another war if he abandons Iraq before our gains have been consolidated.

I'm not sure this is all true. First of all, there have been polls to support the notion that Iraqis don't want American troops in country for quite sometime. Al-Maliki is a politician, just like Obama and McCain and says things publicly that he feels he must.

The man we must listen to is General Petraus. I think the general's comments that we do not need or want a timetable cancel out those of al-Maliki. Or at least cancel them out enough that McCain still has an issue here.

But Morris is 100% right when he says most American's want to know "What now?" more than anything else.
__