It’s pretty clear now as to how the eventual nominee of the Democratic Party will go after John McCain.  The ‘100 years’ gaffe–a line that will repeatdly haunt McCain for the rest of this campaign–has been misconstrued by the left, and is being stripped of its context for political gain.  While I’m all for political gains, especially gains for a certain Illinois senator, I think it’s unfair and potentially harmful to go this route with McCain and Iraq.

The substance of his point–that the U.S. military should be mission focused as opposed to time line focused–is salient and sound.  We do have troops all around the world, and if you start making infantile arguments based on the presence of American troops around the world, you’ll begin to give fodder to McCain’s campaign.  When your argument is tantamount to “we shouldn’t do this because bad guys don’t like it,” you’re bound to lose the American public.

Yglesias, incidentally, seem to think that our presence in Kuwait serves to prop up an “unaccountable and corrupt dictatorship.”  To him, it would apparently make more sense that we abandon this nation to the truly unaccountable and corrupt dictatorship to the northeast, not forgetting the one that once sat to her immediate north.  The formation of the GCC–along with strengthening U.S.-Kuwait relations–was partly a byproduct of Iranian and Iraqi aggression.  American support didn’t make Iran sabotage Kuwaiti refinery plants and ships throughout the 1980’s, nor did it precipitate Iran’s attempted assassination on Kuwait’s then ruler Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

My point?  These relationships have a history that aren’t quite as Crayola as the neo-progressive crowd would like you to believe.  No, it’s not blood for oil.  No, there isn’t a premium on Arab indignation when it comes to American involvement.  There has sadly never been a shortage of indignation in the Middle East, and it’s simply Western arrogance and aloofness to believe otherwise.       

UPDATE: On a similar note, Jason addresses the developing narrative for the 2008 campaign: It’s scaredy cat vs. crazy guy.        

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