Rich: McCain's marketplace visit indicative of a 'turning point' that will lead to withdrawal from Iraq

New York Times columnist Frank Rich says in his Sunday editorial, that Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) Baghdad marketplace photo op was not merely indicative of a flagging presidential campaign, but may also be emblematic of the inevitable withdrawal by the US from Iraq.

"In retrospect, his disastrous trip may be less significant as yet another downturn in a faltering presidential candidacy than as a turning point in hastening the inevitable American exit from Iraq," writes Rich.

McCain is a genuine war hero, says Rich, and by participating in a "embarrassing propaganda stunt" he has hurt "lesser Washington mortals who still claim that the 'surge' can bring 'victory' in Iraq" more than he has damaged himself.

"Bush or anyone else who sees progress in the surge is correct only in the most literal and temporary sense," continues Rich. "Yes, an influx of American troops is depressing some Baghdad violence. But any falloff in the capital is being offset by increased violence in the rest of the country; the civilian death toll rose 15 percent from February to March. Mosul, which was supposedly secured in 2003 by the current American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is now a safe haven for terrorists, according to an Iraqi government spokesman. The once-pacified Tal Afar, which Bush declared 'a free city that gives reason for hope for a free Iraq' in 2006, is a cauldron of bloodshed."

Excerpts follow:

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It can't be lost on those dwindling die-hards, particularly those on the 2008 ballot, that if defending the indefensible can reduce even a politician of McCain's heroic stature to that of Dukakis-in-the-tank, they have nowhere to go but down. They'll cut and run soon enough. For starters, just watch as McCain's GOP presidential rivals add more caveats to their support for the administration's Iraq policy. Already, in a Tuesday interview on "Good Morning America," Mitt Romney inched toward concrete "timetables and milestones" for Iraq, with the nonsensical proviso they shouldn't be published "for the enemy."

As if to confirm we're in the last throes, President Bush threw any remaining caution to the winds during his news conference in the Rose Garden that same morning. Almost everything he said was patently misleading or an outright lie, a sure sign of a leader so entombed in his bunker (he couldn't even emerge for the Washington Nationals' ceremonial first pitch last week) that he feels he has nothing left to lose.

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If Baghdad isn't going to repeat Tal Afar's history, we will have to send many more American troops than promised and keep them there until al-Maliki presides over a stable coalition government providing its own security. Hell is more likely to freeze over first. Yet if American troops don't start to leave far sooner than that -- by the beginning of next year, according to the retired general and sometime White House consultant Barry McCaffrey -- the American Army will start to unravel. The National Guard, whose own new involuntary deployments to Iraq were uncovered last week by NBC News, can't ride to the rescue indefinitely.

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