They listened to the same testimony, they've seen the same events. But Republican John McCain and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, the celebrity members at this morning's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq, gave pitch-perfect performances in weaving completely different narratives out of the same sets of facts.
Both senators acknowledged the recent increase in violence, particularly in Basra, where the Iraqi government has had to send security forces to fight Shia militias. But McCain used that episode to issue a warning clearly aimed at his Democratic rivals: that withdrawing troops now, before Iraq is truly secure, would only make the violence worse, and even lead to civil war and genocide.
“While the job of bringing security to Iraq is not finished, as the recent fighting in Basra and elsewhere vividly demonstrated, we're no longer staring into the abyss of defeat and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success,” said McCain. Leaving now, he said, would “exchange for this victory a defeat that is terrible and long-lasting” and “constitute a failure of political and moral leadership.”
By contrast, Clinton, who didn’t get her turn to speak until long after McCain had left, argued that the Basra fighting and the lack of progress toward political reconciliation are the best arguments for an “orderly process” of withdrawing troops and shifting the focus to Afghanistan and global terrorism.
“It might well be irresponsible to continue the policy that has not produced the results that have been promised time and time again,” she said.
There was also a notable difference in how the two senators used their question-and-answer sessions with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker.
McCain actually used his questions to bring up recent problems in Iraq, such as attacks in the heavily fortified Green Zone and reports that many Iraqi army and police officers either deserted or performed poorly during the Basra fighting.
Normally, those incidents might seem to work against McCain’s overall thesis – that the troop surge worked and has improved conditions in Iraq. Instead, though, McCain seemed to be using those incidents to bolster his argument that conditions aren’t safe enough for the United States to withdraw yet.
He even noted, just as his time was running out, that he would have loved to talk about “the Iranian threat” and that country’s support of Shia militias.
Clinton, by contrast, used her questions as a form of free advertising for one of her bills – a measure that would ban the administration from negotiating long-term security agreements with the Iraqi government without the approval of Congress.
The message of that legislation is clear: The next president – possibly Clinton – shouldn’t have their hands tied. (It’s probably no coincidence that her Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, is a cosponsor.)
Through pointed questioning, she got Crocker to admit that the Bush administration doesn’t plan to submit its planned security agreement to Congress for approval, even though the Iraqi government probably will submit the agreement to its lawmakers.
“It seems odd, I think, to Americans who are being asked to commit for an indefinite period of time the lives of our young men and women in uniform . . . if the Iraqi parliament may have a chance to consider this agreement, that the United States Congress would not,” Clinton said.
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