McCain Adviser Points to 2020 Iraq Withdrawal Date

Wow, this may be the stupidest thing in the entire world (politically speaking).

Max Boot, one of John McCain's top foreign policy advisers, is now pointing to reports that 2018 or 2020 are more realistic dates for American withdrawal from Iraq than 2010.

As we've heard ad nauseum, McCain's position is that there should not be a timetable, so Boot isn't saying that McCain is proposing those dates as goals or targets. But what he is saying is that the practical implication of McCain's policy of open-ended commitment is that American troops would not be able to withdraw from Iraq until 2018 or 2020.

Here's the relevant portion of Boot's missive, which was intended to clarify Nuri al-Maliki's embrace of Barack Obama's withdrawal timetable (emphasis added):

[Senator McCain] has been arguing for a “conditions based” withdrawal as opposed to the fixed timetable demanded by Obama. If Iraqis are ready to assume all responsibility for security by 2010, then it would be perfectly fine to withdraw most U.S. troops, and no doubt President McCain would do so. But it’s dangerous to commit to such a rigid timetable when it’s impossible to envision what the situation will look like at that time. Officers in the Iraqi Security Forces, who have a closer day to day view of the situation than does the Prime Minister, are not sanguine that a turnover by 2010 will be possible.

A recent Washington Post story contains this quote :

We hope they will stay until 2020,” said Brig. Gen. Bilal al-Dayni, a commander in the southern city of Basra, where about 30,000 Iraqi soldiers patrol the streets after a major offensive in March against extremist militias.

That matches the views of Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul Qadir. Earlier this year the New York Times quoted him as follows :

The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018.

As you can see, Boot is arguing that in the context of McCain's policy, 2010 is not a realistic date for American withdrawal. Rather, Boot's view is that estimates of 2018 and 2020 are more plausible.

Aside from Boot's contempt for the Iraqi government's stated views, I don't think most Americans relish the idea of spending another twelve years fighting in Iraq.

This is as close as I've come to seeing a top McCain aide offer a concrete "time horizon" (sic). I'd love to know whether the McCain campaign agrees with Boot, or whether they will throw him under the proverbial bus?

Update: McCain today said that U.S. troops could be out in two years. His campaign spokesman said this is consistent with his prior positions and I agree. McCain all along has said troops could be out in 2 years, 10 years, 100 years, even 10,000 years. The point is that since he has no timetable, under his plan troops "could" be out at anytime. The thing that might be a shift is that he is now saying we "have succeeded" as opposed to we "are succeeding." Of course, if that really was his view, then he would support immediate withdrawal. But he's not for that, so he doesn't really believe we have won the war. Basically, it just seems like smoke-and-mirrors from McCain.

Original here