McCain's Nixon-to-China Moment?

In a story that is likely to generate a lot of discussion tomorrow, David Sanger of the New York Times reports the following:

White House officials fear that the last pillars of political support among Senate Republicans for President Bush’s Iraq strategy are collapsing around them, according to several administration officials and outsiders they are consulting. They say that inside the administration, debate is intensifying over whether Mr. Bush should try to prevent more defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from the high-casualty neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities.

Mr. Bush and his aides once thought they could wait to begin those discussions until after Sept. 15, when the top field commander and the new American ambassador to Baghdad are scheduled to report on the effectiveness of the troop increase that the president announced in January. But suddenly, some of Mr. Bush’s aides acknowledge, it appears that forces are combining against him just as the Senate prepares this week to begin what promises to be a contentious debate on the war’s future and financing.

Four more Republican senators have recently declared that they can no longer support Mr. Bush’s strategy, including senior lawmakers who until now had expressed their doubts only privately. As a result, some aides are now telling Mr. Bush that if he wants to forestall more defections, it would be wiser to announce plans for a far more narrowly defined mission for American troops that would allow for a staged pullback, a strategy that he rejected in December as a prescription for defeat when it was proposed by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

Over the years, we've seen a number of stories much like this one, where anonymous administration officials suggest that a pullback of troops is just around the corner. It never seems to happen. What's interesting about this story, though, is that the anonymous officials not only seem genuinely concerned about eroding Republican support, but they point to a specific political scenario that is giving them heartburn:

“Everyone’s particularly worried about what happens when McCain gets back from Iraq,” one official said, a reference to the latest trip to Baghdad by Senator John McCain, who has been a stalwart supporter of the “surge” strategy. Mr. McCain’s travels, and his political troubles in the race for the Republican nomination for president, have fueled speculation that he may declare that while there are some signs of military progress, the Iraqi government is incapable of reaching the kind of political accommodations that the crackdown on violence was supposed to permit.

The reason I find this passage interesting is that the same thought had occurred to me. In a conversation with a friend a week or so ago, I suggested that McCain was poised for a Nixon-to-China type moment with respect to Iraq, should he choose to embrace it. No member of Congress (with the possible exception of Joe Lieberman) has been more hawkish on Iraq policy over the years than John McCain. He was in favor of a surge well before the White House adopted that policy as its own. And that leaves McCain uniquely poised to deliver the fatal blow to the surge policy.

Should McCain pronounce that the policy has failed, his opinion would carry enormous weight among Republicans in Congress and among members of the media. It would also be smart politics. McCain's unrelenting militarism and failed attempt to woo the Republican base have turned off moderates and independents and alienated his biggest fans, beltway journalists. The result is a campaign on life support.

McCain has no hope of being the establishment candidate for the Republican party. But there is a major void in the Republican race waiting to be filled. A recent Strategic Vision poll of likely Republican caucus-goers in Iowa found that a sizable majority (54% to 37%) favored "withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months." Other than Ron Paul, however, there is no Republican in the race speaking for these voters on this issue.

If McCain were to announce that the surge had failed and that it was time to start reducing our troop presence in Iraq, it would command wall-to-wall press coverage for weeks. McCain would once again be the darling of the press corps, his maverick bona fides having been completely restored. He would no doubt incur the wrath of most of the 27% crowd, but they weren't going to vote for him anyway. McCain's reversal would, however, put him in an excellent position to secure the votes of the substantial percentage of Republican primary voters (particularly in crucial early states like Iowa and New Hampshire) who are opposed to Bush's Iraq policy. And, much like 2000, McCain would be well-positioned to win the votes of Independents in New Hampshire's open primary.

McCain's road to the nomination would still be very difficult, but the odds of him winning would be greater than zero, which is pretty much what they are if he continues his present course.

That said, I'm not at all convinced that McCain has anything like this up his sleeve. Though I can see why Bush administration officials would be fretting about the possibility of McCain defecting on Iraq (it would be a devastating blow), I'm having a really hard time picturing that happening.

I'll believe it when I see it.