Lord, you would think that a man who has made his living and well I might add would drag his lazy carcus out of Washington and talk the the “people” about how they feel about Iraq. Not his, “people”…the Washington establishment…I’d take the man a little more serious.

Questions For John McCain

The Democratic nominee will try to make a mountain out of McCain’s molehill of an assertion that it would be “fine” with him if some U.S. forces are in Iraq for “maybe 100″ years, if Americans are not being harmed. Voters are not seething or even restive because U.S. forces have been in Japan and Germany for 63 years and in South Korea for 58. McCain’s real vulnerabilities are related to four questions about Iran and one about Iraq. By answering all five he will reveal what constitutional limits — if any — he accepts on the powers of the presidency regarding foreign and military policies.

First, he says war with Iran would be less dreadful than an Iran with nuclear arms. Why does he think, as his statement implies, that a nuclear Iran would be, unlike the Soviet Union, undeterrable and not susceptible to long-term containment unless internal dynamics alter the regime?

Second, many hundreds of bombing sorties — serious warfare — would be required to justify confidence that Iran’s nuclear program had been incapacitated for the foreseeable future. Does McCain believe that a president is constitutionally empowered to launch such a protracted preventive war without congressional authorization?