McCain’s Mideast Mistake
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Senator McCain’s assertion on Fox News over the weekend that Americans won’t go to war again in the Middle East couldn’t be more short-sighted or poorly timed. The senator was trying to defend the American expeditions in Iraq and Afghanistan in connection with the 10th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. “I think we did the right thing there,” he said according to the account in the Huffington Post. Then he added: “But I also think we learned a lot of lessons, and frankly, I don’t think you’re going to see the United States of America in another war in that part of the world. I don’t think American public opinion would stand for it.”
His remark invites an attack on Israel, over which war clouds were scudding even as Mr. McCain was speaking. Israel is reeling from the sacking of its embassy at Cairo, while Turkey is hatching its plan to send its warships to escort the next flotilla trying to break the Israel blockade on Gaza, whence Hamas has been waging war against the Jewish state. The United Nations General Assembly was getting ready to cast aside the principle of a negotiated settlement enshrined in Revolution 242 and proceed to grant the Arabs a state at Palestine. Even the New York Times is describing the Obama administration’s efforts to prevent this as “listless.” What a great time for Mr. McCain to pipe up to say that democracy in the Middle East isn’t worth fighting for in the future.
It’s a mistake big enough to remind of Secretary of State Acheson’s notorious blunder at the national Press Club, where, in 1950, he gave a speech defining the American “defensive perimeter” in the Pacific as a line running through Japan, the Ryukyus, and the Philippines. It excluded Free Korea and Free China. It was only a matter of months before North Korea launched its war. Whether Acheson’s remarks actually precipitated the war is a matter of dispute among scholars. But the risk that it emboldened Stalin and his puppets is one of those features of history that haunt students of the era to this day. It’s a tragedy that Mr. McCain doesn’t get this. The lesson for Israel is bank less about America’s politicians and more about its own judgment of its own interests and strategic calculations in the dangerous days ahead.
