This dog might hunt

Wednesday, 23rd July 2008

Now that Prime Minister Maliki has made Obama’s policy of withdrawing US troops from Iraq in 16 months look less dangerous than it is, the McCain camp need to open another front on Obama’s Iraq position. Marc Aminder reports that today in Pennsylvania, McCain tried out a new attack.

"We will come home. We will come home with victory and honor, but we will never have to go back," he said.
"So, when Senator Obama says well if we don't succeed, we may have to go back in, we might."

This strikes me as a possibly effective line. It plays to the McCain’s campaign general theme that Obama is too much of a risk and communicates that getting the US withdrawal from Iraq wrong would not only cost Iraqi lives and risk a war in the Middle East but would also require America to expend more blood and treasure to stabilise the situation.