National Security Network

McCain Has an Extreme Neoconservative Foreign Policy Record and Outlook

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Report 4 September 2008

Foreign Policy iraq McCain neoconservatives. Bush rumsfeld terrorism

While Sen. McCain has claimed his foreign policy experience as one of his greatest attributes, his actual record demonstrates a history of poor judgment and reckless rhetoric. The Republicans have spent the entire week trying to resurrect McCain’s image as a critic of the Bush administration, but his record shows that on issue after issue McCain was in perfect alignment with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. For instance, McCain:

  • called for invading Iraq in the immediate aftermath of 9-11,
  • exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, 
  • strongly supported the Rumsfeld war strategy that relied on too few troops and led to the post-invasion fiasco, 
  • believed that we would be greeted as liberators and the war would be “easy,” 
  • thought that Ahmed Chalabi would be accepted as the leader of Iraq,
  • and advocated confrontation with North Korea, Iran.

In addition, as the Bush administration has moderated and changed its approach on a variety of foreign policy issues – negotiating with North Korea, meeting with Iran, agreeing to a timetable for withdrawal on Iraq – McCain has continued to hold reckless and extreme foreign policy positions in line with his discredited neoconservative advisers. McCain’s unwillingness to engage in talks with Iran, his dismissal of the Bush administration’s negotiations with North Korea, and his eagerness to immediately ratchet up the confrontational rhetoric with Russia, demonstrate that McCain would be prone to lurch from crisis to crisis, confrontation to confrontation, while U.S. troops would remain in Iraq indefinitely. After eight years of pursuing a failed Bush administration foreign policy, the country needs a dramatic change in direction, not Bush on steroids.

McCain Has Consistently Demonstrated Poor and reckless Judgement

McCain lauded Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, and described Bush’s national security team the strongest “that has ever been assembled.” “While pushing to take on Saddam Hussein, Mr. McCain also made arguments and statements that he may no longer wish to recall. He lauded the war planners he would later criticize, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. (Mr. McCain even volunteered that he would have given the same job to Mr. Cheney.)… Mr. McCain called his [President Bush] leadership ‘magnificent’ and his national security team the strongest ‘that has ever been assembled.’ A few weeks later, Larry King of CNN asked whether he would have named Mr. Rumsfeld and Colin L. Powell to a McCain cabinet. ‘Oh, yes, and Cheney,’ Mr. McCain answered, saying he, too, would have offered Mr. Cheney the vice presidency.” [NY Times, 8/16/08. CNN Larry King, 11/28/01]
 
In midst of Afghanistan invasion, McCain was focused on Iraq. “Even during the heat of the war in Afghanistan, Mr. McCain kept an eye on Iraq. To Jay Leno in mid-September, Mr. McCain said he believed ‘some other countries’ had assisted Osama bin Laden, going on to suggest Iraq, Syria and Iran as potential suspects… Mr. McCain interrupted a question about Afghanistan from David Letterman on that night’s ‘Late Show.’ ‘The second phase is Iraq.’” [NY Times, 8/16/08. CBS Late Show with David Letterman, 10/18/01]

In an effort to hype the Iraq threat, McCain invented connections between Saddam and Anthrax attacks, as well as Al Qaeda. “And he advanced misleading assertions not only about Mr. Hussein’s supposed weapons programs but also about his possible ties to international terrorists, Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 attacks…Mr. McCain said, adding, ‘Some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.’ (The Federal Bureau of Investigation says it came from a federal government laboratory in Maryland.) By October, United States and foreign intelligence agencies had said publicly that they doubted any cooperation between Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda, noting Al Qaeda’s opposition to such secular nationalists. American intelligence officials soon declared that Mr. Hussein had not supported international terrorism for nearly a decade.” [NY Times, 8/16/08. CBS Late Show with David Letterman, 10/18/01. NBC, Today Show, 2/13/03]

McCain was duped by Chalabi and Iraqi exiles. “He urged support for the later-discredited Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi’s opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, and echoed some of its suspect accusations in the national media… Mr. McCain’s aides say, he had long sought to learn as much as he could from Iraqi opposition figures in exile, including Mr. Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. Over the years, Mr. McCain often urged support for the group, saying it had ‘significant support, in my view, inside Iraq.’ …After Sept. 11, Mr. Chalabi’s group said an Iraqi emissary had once met with Osama bin Laden, and brought forward two Iraqi defectors who described terrorist training camps and biological weapons efforts. At times, Mr. McCain seemed to echo their accusations, citing the ‘two defectors’ in a television interview and attesting to ‘credible reports of involvement between Iraqi administration officials, Iraqi officials and the terrorists.’” [NY Times, 8/16/08. CBS 60 Minutes, 4/6/03]

McCain still stands by his initial support for the war, despite war being a complete fiasco. “Mr. McCain, in his e-mail message, said the reason he had supported the war was the evolving threat from Mr. Hussein. ‘I believe voters elect their leaders based on their experience and judgment — their ability to make hard calls, for instance, on matters of war and peace,’ he wrote. ‘It’s important to get them right.’” [NY Times, 8/16/08]

McCain Had George Bush's Foreign Policy Before George Bush


McCain has been the neocon’s candidate the past decade.
“Mr. McCain and his aides were consulting regularly with the circle of hawkish foreign policy thinkers sometimes referred to as neoconservatives — including Mr. Kristol, Robert Kagan and Randy Scheunemann, a former aide to Mr. Dole who became a McCain campaign adviser — to develop the senator’s foreign policy ideas and instincts into the broad themes of a presidential campaign.” Robert Kagan, one of the most prominent neoconservatives also wrote McCain’s speech at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. [NY Times, 8/16/08. WSJ, 3/6/08. Wonk Room, 3/17/08]

McCain advocated attacking Iraq and a long list of countries right after 9-11. “In the spotlight, he pushed rogue state rollback one step further, arguing that the United States should go on the offensive as a warning to any other country that might condone such an attack. ‘These networks are well-embedded in some of these countries,’ Mr. McCain said on Sept. 12, listing Iraq, Iran and Syria as potential targets of United States pressure. ‘We’re going to have to prove to them that we are very serious, and the price that they will pay will not only be for punishment but also deterrence.’” [NY Times, 8/16/08. Fox News, 11/9/01]

Economist in 2002 explained that John McCain’s campaign in 2000 laid groundwork for Bush’s post-9-11 foreign policy.
“Despite his defeat, he [McCain] laid much of the groundwork for Mr Bush's post-September presidency… if you look at the ideas that currently animate Mr Bush's presidency, they are about as McCainiac as you can get without having spent five years as a Vietnamese prisoner-of-war... In his state-of-the-union speech in January, Mr Bush... delivered his famous warning on the ‘axis of evil,’ rhetorically reformulating Mr. McCain's ‘rogue-state rollback.’” [Economist, 3/28/08]

McCain Will Likely Be Worse Than Bush

McCain has consistently advocated for an extreme approach toward North Korea. In 1994, McCain warned that war with North Korea was “inevitable,” and threatened them with extinction.  He continued to hew to this hawkish position in the following years, suggesting in 2000 that the U.S. overthrow the North Korean government as part of his policy of “rogue-state rollback.”  Consistently rejecting the kind of tough engagement that has resulted in recent diplomatic progress, McCain “supported President Bush's decision in 2001 to cut off discussions with North Korea, and when six years of failure led to a North Korean nuclear test in 2007, his response was to lead the charge in blaming the Clinton Administration.” [The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), 5/30/94; Agence France Presse, 2/16/00; MSNBC, 6/21/06; CBS News, 7/9/06; New Republic, 5/7/08]

McCain will adopt extreme policy of confrontation toward Iran.  When it comes to Iran, McCain has consistently gone further than the Bush administration by escalating tensions, and calling for military action.  After 9/11, McCain supported a “go-it-alone” strategy for confronting Iran, and looked past Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria, and Iran.  McCain has provided further clues about what his Iran policy might look like by stating his opposition toward direct negotiations with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and more alarmingly through his response to a question about Iran, where he sang “Bomb, bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann.” [The Early Show, CBS, 10/9/01; MSNBC, Hardball, 10/3/01; Council on Foreign Relations, 6/30/08; UPI, 4/19/07]

McCain will likely further alienate our allies.  Despite McCain’s claims that he will work with U.S. allies to create a “League of Democracies” to confront autocratic or illiberal governments, McCain’s past actions indicate that he will adopt the brash unilateralism typical of the neocons. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, McCain dismissed U.S. allies France and Germany as “vacuous and posturing,” argued that Germany’s resistance to U.S. military action against Iraq stemmed from their lack of “political courage,” and warned that the UN risked “irrelevancy” if it failed to follow the U.S. into Iraq.  At the time, other conservatives distanced themselves from this approach, including Senator Chuck Hagel, who stated that a policy like McCain’s “pushes allies away from us.” [Washington Post, 2/9/03; Washington Times, 2/14/03; CBS Sunday Morning; 2/16/03]