McCain the Diplomat
I wrote a piece on the election for The Spectator, and there’s one section that I think some readers will find totally absurd. Here it is:
During the Saddleback Civil Forum, the celebrated evangelical pastor Rick Warren asked McCain to name a time when he went against his party’s interests and his own interests to serve a higher cause. McCain’s answer was instructive. He chose the time when he opposed Ronald Reagan’s decision to deploy US Marines to Lebanon on a peace-keeping mission.
‘My knowledge and my background told me that a few hundred Marines in a situation like that could not successfully carry out any kind of peacekeeping mission. And I thought they were going into harm’s way. Tragically, as many of you recall, there was a bombing in the Marine barracks and well over 100 brave Marines gave their lives. But it was tough, that vote, because I went against the president I believed in, and the party that believed that maybe I was disloyal very early in my political career.’
McCain’s meaning is clear. Whereas Democratic partisans accuse McCain of being a warmonger, the truth is that he believes that force should be used sparingly. And he believes that when force is used, it must be used effectively and with a clear goal in mind, a belief that was at the centre of his dispute with Donald Rumsfeld. Barack Obama and the Democrats made great hay out of McCain’s assertion that it would be fine for US troops to remain in Iraq for 100 years provided there were no casualties. What they don’t mention is that in 2004 McCain explicitly opposed the creation of permanent US bases in Iraq. Whereas Obama’s foreign policy ideology led him to oppose the surge, McCain’s foreign policy pragmatism will make him a more effective commander-in-chief. That is a message McCain needs to get across.
Sparingly? Hasn’t McCain backed force whenever the option was even remotely plausible? I actually don’t think he has. To be sure, he’s not a devotee of the Powell-Weinberger doctrine. But when you look at Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, I think you had three compelling cases for the use of force, certainly from the vantage point of when those decisions were made. What was distinctive about McCain is that in each case he believed that we should deploy a decisive force. Will he be similarly inclined to deploy force to settle disputes in Georgia, Burma, the Nigerian delta, etc., etc.? I doubt it. My sense is that he wants to strengthen our alliances so that conflicts don’t escalate — he wants to nip potential crises in the bud. Which is why I tend to think that he would be diplomatically hyperactive, like George H.W. Bush.
I realize that this is a minority view. Noah Millman made the case far better than I can.
Reihan, your piece showed real insightful analysis of McCain as the man YOU WANT HIM TO BE, but sadly is not and never will be. He might not have been a warmonger on the scale of Bush 43, but he has drunk the Rove Kool-Aid and has broken challah with Lieberman, and I think that the message he will convey next week will be one of emerging crises all over the world and how our military must be ready to take them all on. He will not express a desire for diplomacy first, and if he for some reason utters the word “peace,” it will only be because Obama said it first. He will do all he can to steal issues away from Obama. But this time… this time… it will not work.
— Eric P · Aug 29, 04:56 AM · #
Reihan,
Very interesting article … The problem I see with the excerpted passage is that it does not address how the original 2002 authorizing vote might have been justified under this interpretation of Sen. McCain’s foreign policy philosophy. Also, it’s a small thing, but I couldn’t help but notice that McCain oddly understated the casualties of the Beirut bombing. I thought it was common knowledge among those of us news-conscious at the time, and certainly among political people, that 241 service members were killed, not just “over 100.” Anyway, curious as to your thoughts about the 2002 vote. Thanks.
— jason · Aug 29, 08:38 PM · #
I don’t see it. My memory has John McCain as the original neo-conservative, favoring rogue state rollback in the 1990s. He not only wanted action on Kosovo, he wanted ground fores to invade Serbia.
More recently, he has criticized the Bush administration for negotiating with North Korea. He has criticized Obama for being willing to negotiate too readily with Iran. He wants Georgia in NATO (so contra Reihan’s comment he does want to commit US forces to the defense of Georgia).
I’ll admit I am biased observer of Republican politicians, but everything I see suggests John McCain believes strongly in the value of threatening military action.
Now add in John McCain love of gambling, both literal (craps apparently) and political (was it 2 or 3 conversation with Palin before he chose the woman who has at least a 20% chance of succeeding him). In a powerful Senator, that’s a dangerous combination. For a President, it would be a disaster.
Tom
— Tom G. · Aug 30, 08:14 PM · #