In the course of his victory speech tonight, McCain seemed to finally, and confidently, settle on a strategy for dealing with Iraq in the campaign ahead:
Certainly McCain has never backed away from the decision to go to war, but I’m not sure I’ve heard him affirm that decision so forcefully in the past few months. Obama could beat Hillary up over her vote in support of the war because she no longer stood by it, but there is nothing to re-litigate here. McCain is for destroying Saddam–who isn’t? McCain was against the failed tactics–who else was? And he’s talking about honor. Obama doesn’t. Americans still care about honor. But the phrasing also reminds the public of the danger that Saddam represented. Obama wants to re-litigate the war, but the decision wasn’t to go to war or not, it was to depose Saddam Hussein or leave him in power. This is the type of tough decision a president must make–and if Obama (or Clinton?) wants to argue that the war was a mistake, McCain is going to make him argue in defense of Saddam Hussein.
