McCain goes all in: fight or retreat

Go all in or go home. An exasperated Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) offered that stunning new take on the war in Afghanistan on Thursday, saying the U.S. should either halt the drawdown from Afghanistan and leave 68,000 troops there to fight through 2014, or consider ending the war altogether.   The statement from McCain, ranking ...

Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call

Go all in or go home. An exasperated Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) offered that stunning new take on the war in Afghanistan on Thursday, saying the U.S. should either halt the drawdown from Afghanistan and leave 68,000 troops there to fight through 2014, or consider ending the war altogether.
 
The statement from McCain, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and leading Republican voice on the war, came as a criticism of President Obama’s stated plans to steadily reduce troop levels in Afghanistan. McCain has long questioned if the mission to build Afghan forces and hand over security to them by 2015 is possible with a concurrent troop pullout.
 
But it also was a publically delivered message to Obama’s presumed next Afghanistan war commander, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, who appeared in his confirmation hearing.
 
“If we can’t accomplish the mission, I’m not sure why we should stay,” McCain said, offering a view of the war virtually unheard during the presidential campaign season that just ended.
 
“There’s three of us here, general, who have been going over there for the last 11 years.” McCain continued. “And we haven’t seen the progress that we had hoped would take place. And we do see quite often sentiment by the part of Afghans and their neighbors that the United States spends most of its time announcing withdrawals and dates for withdrawals rather than recipes for success. Some of us, as I say, we’ve been observing this for a long, long time, made many, many visits and many, many briefings, are deeply concerned.”
 
Dunford is nominated to succeed Gen. John Allen, whose nomination to take over NATO has been put on hold while a Defense Department investigation looks into tens of thousands of pages of emails the Pentagon said include “flirtatious” exchanges with a married woman in Florida.
 

Go all in or go home. An exasperated Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) offered that stunning new take on the war in Afghanistan on Thursday, saying the U.S. should either halt the drawdown from Afghanistan and leave 68,000 troops there to fight through 2014, or consider ending the war altogether.
 
The statement from McCain, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and leading Republican voice on the war, came as a criticism of President Obama’s stated plans to steadily reduce troop levels in Afghanistan. McCain has long questioned if the mission to build Afghan forces and hand over security to them by 2015 is possible with a concurrent troop pullout.
 
But it also was a publically delivered message to Obama’s presumed next Afghanistan war commander, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, who appeared in his confirmation hearing.
 
“If we can’t accomplish the mission, I’m not sure why we should stay,” McCain said, offering a view of the war virtually unheard during the presidential campaign season that just ended.
 
“There’s three of us here, general, who have been going over there for the last 11 years.” McCain continued. “And we haven’t seen the progress that we had hoped would take place. And we do see quite often sentiment by the part of Afghans and their neighbors that the United States spends most of its time announcing withdrawals and dates for withdrawals rather than recipes for success. Some of us, as I say, we’ve been observing this for a long, long time, made many, many visits and many, many briefings, are deeply concerned.”
 
Dunford is nominated to succeed Gen. John Allen, whose nomination to take over NATO has been put on hold while a Defense Department investigation looks into tens of thousands of pages of emails the Pentagon said include “flirtatious” exchanges with a married woman in Florida.
 

Kevin Baron is a national security reporter for Foreign Policy, covering defense and military issues in Washington. He is also vice president of the Pentagon Press Association. Baron previously was a national security staff writer for National Journal, covering the "business of war." Prior to that, Baron worked in the resident daily Pentagon press corps as a reporter/photographer for Stars and Stripes. For three years with Stripes, Baron covered the building and traveled overseas extensively with the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, covering official visits to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Middle East and Europe, China, Japan and South Korea, in more than a dozen countries. From 2004 to 2009, Baron was the Boston Globe Washington bureau's investigative projects reporter, covering defense, international affairs, lobbying and other issues. Before that, he muckraked at the Center for Public Integrity. Baron has reported on assignment from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and the South Pacific. He was won two Polk Awards, among other honors. He has a B.A. in international studies from the University of Richmond and M.A. in media and public affairs from George Washington University. Originally from Orlando, Fla., Baron has lived in the Washington area since 1998 and currently resides in Northern Virginia with his wife, three sons, and the family dog, The Edge. Twitter: @FPBaron

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