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Five Years Later

Posted by Michael Link on May 1, 2008 at 10:00 AM

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

- President George W. Bush, May 1, 2003

"The war will be over soon."

- Senator John McCain, February 25, 2008

And not only is the mission not "accomplished." There's no clear mission to begin with. The White House says one thing, John McCain says another. Except he's in favor of staying there for 100 years, which completely changes that mission.

It'd be nice to elect a president whose vision of finally getting out of Iraq doesn't occur at a time of robots and flying cars. So on this Mission Accomplished Day, my own personal question to McCain is what mission does he see for our troops for the next 100 years? What goal would he give them? And how, exactly, is it going to be just like Germany, Japan, or South Korean like he claims?

There are a lot of lessons. But one you should certainly take away is that just because somebody declares that we're going to stay in Iraq with an open-ended commitment and no combat doesn't make it so. It didn't make it so for Bush, and it won't make it so for McCain's vision of 100 years in Iraq.

Of course, McCain used to know this. But flip-flopped on it so many times I'm not sure he remembers what he has said. Asked by Charlie Rose if he thought the South Korean model would serve as an analogy, even if there were no casualties, he said "No..."

But times have changed; namely, he had to win a Republican primary.

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