Subject: Joe Klein: McCain Soft on al Qaeda
From: "Andrew Baumann" <[email-masked]>
To: "ic2008" <[email-masked]>, "Ana Iparraguirre" <[email-masked]>, "Bryan Fisher" <[email-masked]>, "John Podesta" <[email-masked]>, "Kristi Fuksa" <[email-masked]>, "Paul Begala" <[email-masked]>, "Stan Greenberg" <[email-masked]>, "Susan McCue" <[email-masked]>, "Tara McGuinness" <[email-masked]>, "Tom Matzzie" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:47:21 -0500

In case anyone hasn't seen this, this was quite a piece by Joe Klein on
Time.com today:

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/02/mccain_soft_on_al_qaeda.html

McCain: Soft on Al Qaeda?
<http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/02/mccain_soft_on_al_qaeda.html
> 

A curious passage from John McCain's victory speech last night:

"Or will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate
who once suggested invading our ally, Pakistan, and sitting down without
pre-conditions or clear purpose with enemies who support terrorists and
are intent on destabilizing the world by acquiring nuclear weapons?"

In time, I'm sure, Barack Obama will explain that any meetings with
Iranian leaders will be fully prepped by staff in advance, including
advance meetings at the ministerial level...but what about the first
part of the quote? Utter nonsense. Here's what Obama actually said:

"I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let
me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who
murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a
terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an Al
Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence
about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we
will."

And, in fact, Obama was merely saying that he supported current U.S.
policy. A month ago, for example, a bomb launched from a CIA predator
drone killed
<http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/01/31/alqaeda.death/index.html> the Al
Qaeda leader Abu Laith al-Libi in Pakistan. Was McCain opposed to that?

The point is, McCain's loose, inaccurate talk continues a sad pattern he
has shown on national security matters, particularly with regard to
Iraq, where he is a loose cannon, firing off hot-button words like
"victory" and "surrender"--words that his hero General David Petraeus
has never and would never use. As it now stands, McCain believes that
Iraq, where 150,000 U.S. troops are chasing after 3,500 Al Qaeda in
Mesopotamia terrorists, is the "central front" in the war against
terrorism--and he is on the record opposed to taking military action
against the real Al Qaeda, which is actively working to destabilize
Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and may be planning the next 9/11 in the
mountains of Waziristan. Indeed, the election results in Pakistan this
week may lead to further instability, perhaps a military coup, which
could make U.S. action--action, not invasion--to root out Al Qaeda all
the more necessary.

A central foreign policy discussion in the general election should be:
Are our troops deployed appropriately to meet the threats we are facing?
Should we have more in Afghanistan and fewer in Iraq? (McCain, like
Bush, has already ceded his authority as Commander-in-Chief on that
decision to Petraeus, whom, he says, should have the last word on troop
levels in Iraq--an abdication of authority that raises deep questions
about McCain's ability to conduct a coherent national security policy.)

In sum, John McCain, who claims to take national security seriously,
made a foolish statement to score political points last night. At the
very least, I hope he retracts it and joins Obama in the effort to
defeat Al Qaeda.

 

 

Andrew Baumann

Analyst

10 G Street NE, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20002

Phone: 202 478 8300 / Fax: 202 478 8301

[email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>  

www.greenbergresearch.com <http://www.greenbergresearch.com>