Super Tuesday

Writing in The Mirror, Hitch observes the hostility of the American Right to Senator John McCain:

"It is almost impossible to overstate the pure loathing which the denizens of the American Right manifest for the senator from Arizona. He has, they feel, completely sold them out by being soft on illegal immigration. They regard his campaign-finance reform legislation as a strangulation of American rights. In the fever-swamps and chat-rooms, and on the talk-radio circuit dominated by Rush Limbaugh, one hears rhetoric not rivaled since the John Birch Society denounced President Eisenhower as a Communist. Ann Coulter, the blond goddess of the Right, has already announced that she will vote for the Democrats against McCain. However it goes tomorrow, the longest faces will be within the respective parties."

That loathing is one of the principal reasons for wishing McCain well for the nomination. I've also been impressed with McCain's determination not only to support the intervention in Iraq, but to explain its importance regardless of the political cost to his campaign. Here's what one astute America-watcher, Matt Frei of the BBC, said last April:

"BBC Washington correspondent Matt Frei says Mr McCain, a former Navy pilot and Vietnam prisoner-of-war, faces an uphill battle to rescue his campaign. The dilemma for him is that he has attached himself to former foe Mr Bush's policy in Iraq because he genuinely believes that is the right way to go, our correspondent says. But he has to consistently explain his stance, arguing that Mr Bush - in boosting troop numbers - is now doing what he suggested three years ago, and stressing that he is more interested in winning the war than winning the 2008 race. It is a huge gamble for Mr McCain, our correspondent says, because it is an unpopular war and it is hurting him in the polls."

So, in both respects, it was. Unless you already agree with me that the Iraq War was a just and necessary intervention, it is unlikely I can say anything to convince you now. Yet the best arguments in US debate both for the decision to intervene and the necessity of tackling it more seriously than the Bush administration has evinced have come from McCain. As he wrote in an op-ed also last April, after General Petraeus had taken up his post:

"In 2003, after my first visit, I argued for more troops to provide the security necessary for political development. I disagreed with statements characterizing the insurgency as a "few dead-enders" or being in its "last throes." I repeatedly criticized the previous search-and-destroy strategy and argued for a counterinsurgency approach: separating the reconcilable population from the irreconcilable and creating enough security to facilitate the political and economic solutions that are the only way to defeat insurgents. This is exactly the course that Petraeus and the brave men and women of the American military are pursuing."

It's a course that, as I've argued recently, has not won the war but has made it a winnable war. US and UK voters are not inherently opposed to military intervention; what they oppose is military defeat. From my standpoint as a European Atlanticist left-winger, I can at least reason my way to this conclusion. If McCain gains the nomination, and especially if he does it rapidly, I'd be reassured both by his stance on security and by the disapprobation in which he's held by the Right. So I hope it happens.

Comments

[Tim Jones]

"Unless you already agree with me that the Iraq War was a just and necessary intervention, it is unlikely I can say anything to convince you now."

You give up too easy.

[Jeff]

Love your blog as any admirer of long sentences must. Your logic is off here though (or at least the juxtaposition of your second to last sentence is a little deceiving). The right's disatisfaction with McCain is largely on free speech grounds to which if I have been reading you correctly might concern you as well (it concerns me too though not to the point where I would pick another conteneder of either party over him), as well as his stance on what is seen as rewarding illegal behavior by legalizing illegal immigrants (something he has backtracked on recently). His embrace of Phil Gramm and his concession that he was wrong to oppose the Bush tax cuts since he believes they essentially worked in hindsight has somewhat squared him with conservatives on that issue. The "disapprobation in which he's held by the Right" is completely unrelated to his stance on security which I am guessing you knew.

[antrastan]

Long sentences? Hmn. In literary terms I'd say OK's style is a fusion of Yvor Winters and Jane Austen, plus namecalling spice.