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:
As you well know, America is at war in two countries and involved in a long and difficult fight with violent extremists who despise us, our values, and modernity itself. It is of little use to Americans for their candidates to avoid the many complex challenges of these struggles by re-litigating decisions of the past. I will defend the decision to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime...[applause]...as I also criticized the failed tactics that were employed for too long [...] to establish the conditions that will allow us to leave that country with our country's interests secure and our honor intact.
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.