Think Progress

John McCain Criticizes John McCain For Wanting To ‘Muddle Through’ In Afghanistan

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for further escalation in Afghanistan, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joe Liebermen (I-CT) specifically reject a previous contention made by McCain himself. The senators claim that under-resourcing the Afghanistan effort “is a recipe for quagmire and collapse of political support for the war at home”:

Mr. Obama was right when he said last year that “You don’t muddle through the central front on terror . . . You don’t muddle through stamping out the Taliban.”

Asked about Afghanistan back in Nov. 2003, McCain stressed that Iraq was the more important effort, but that he thought that we would be able to “muddle through”:

MCCAIN: I am concerned about it, but I’m not as concerned as I am about Iraq today — obviously, or I’d be talking about Afghanistan — but I believe that if Karzai can make the progress that he is making, that in the long term we may muddle through in Afghanistan.

Watch it:

None of the three hawkish senators, all of whom shilled relentlessly for the invasion of Iraq, have ever owned up to the now widely-accepted fact that the diversion of troops and resources and attention away from Afghanistan toward Iraq was the critical factor in the resurrection of the Taliban insurgency. Read more at the Wonk Room.

Huckabee Rejects Two-State Solution

On a visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories this week, former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee supported Israel’s right to build settlements on Palestinian land. He also stated his opposition to a two-state solution, saying that there is no room for a Palestinian state “in the middle of the Jewish homeland”:

Speaking to a small group of foreign reporters in Jerusalem, Huckabee, seen as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, said the international community should consider establishing a Palestinian state some place else.

“The question is should the Palestinians have a place to call their own? Yes, I have no problem with that. Should it be in the middle of the Jewish homeland? That’s what I think has to be honestly assessed as virtually unrealistic.”

This isn’t the first time Huckabee has come out against a two-state solution and endorsed the idea of Palestinian population transfer. In August 2008, Huckabee said, “The two-state solution is no solution, but will cause only problems,” insisting that “the Palestinians can create their homeland in many other places in the Middle East, outside Israel.” Ironically, the Jerusalem Post reported that Huckabee “did not want to impose his views on the situation or to Americanize it.”

Huckabee’s current visit is being sponsored by the American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, a non-profit organization “that sends millions of shekels worth of donations to Israel every year for clearly political purposes, such as buying Arab properties in East Jerusalem.” Israel’s Haaretz reported that the group “is registered in the United States as an organization that funds educational institutes in Israel,” but that its financing of settlements in East Jerusalem would “seem to violate the organization’s tax-exempt status.”

Yesterday, Huckabee attended a reception at the Shepherd Hotel in East Jerusalem, which “became the focus of American-Israeli tensions last month.” The Obama administration has objected to Israeli plans for construction of a new Jewish settlement at the hotel, which is “located in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood.”

Huckabee To Broadcast His Fox News Show From An Israeli Settlement

Israel’s Haaretz reports that “former U.S. presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee plans to broadcast his weekend show on Fox News” from a settlement construction site in East Jerusalem:

New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said Huckabee will air the talkshow during a solidarity visit to the site of the project, which is in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Hikind, who is active in right-wing Jewish causes, told Haaretz that dozens of U.S. activists will participate in the mission, in order to express their support for the project and the man behind it, Irving Moskowitz.

Hikind is a former follower of Meir Kahane, a Jewish extremist who was assassinated in 1990. Two Kahanist organizations, Kach and Kahane Chai, are on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Irving Moskowitz is a Florida-based gambling magnate who funds right-wing pro-Israel organizations in the United States and radical Israeli settler groups and settlement projects in the occupied territories, like the one in Sheikh Jarrah. Moskowitz is also a longtime funder of conservative think tanks like the Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and the Center for Security Policy (CSP).

Huckabee has been an outspoken supporter of Israeli settlements — and opponent of a two-state solution. Last July, Huckabee told World Net Daily that “the two-state solution is no solution, but will cause only problems. … The Palestinians can create their homeland in many other places in the Middle East, outside Israel.”

The Israel Project: Ending Settlements = ‘Ethnic Cleansing’

Columnist Douglas Bloomfield reports that The Israel Project (TIP) — a Washington- based group that describes itself as “devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel while promoting security, freedom and peace” — advocates accusing those who support removing illegal Israeli settlements of promoting “a kind of ethnic cleansing to move all Jews” from the West Bank.

Bloomfield obtained a copy of TIP’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary, “a manual on how to talk to journalists and opinion molders about the Arab-Israeli conflict.” The manual states:

“The single toughest issue” to defend among Americans generally and American Jews in particular is settlements, says the manual, and “hostility towards them and towards Israeli policy that appears to encourage settlement activity.” [...]

Similarly, TIP says the “best argument” for settlements is this: Since Arabs citizens of Israel “enjoy equal rights,” telling Jews they can’t live in the Palestinian state “is a racist idea.”

As Bloomfield notes, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said recently that Jews who choose to live in the new state of Palestine “will not enjoy any less rights than Israeli Arabs enjoy now in the state of Israel.”

Last Thursday, TIP organized a press call with Israeli spokesman Mark Regev, who defended continued building in Israel settlements. Given the numerous Israeli administrative and security measures that function to divest Palestinians of their property and put it into the hands of Israeli settlers, TIP’s use of the term “ethnic cleansing” is patently ridiculous.

McCain: ‘I Hope That We Will Act’ Against Iran

Today, thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest the election results declaring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner — results Vice President Biden said yesterday he had “doubts” about. Speaking on Fox News this morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) condemned the Iranian election as a “sham,” declaring, “I hope that we will act“:

MCCAIN: It really is a sham that they’ve pulled off, and I hope that we will act. [...]

CARLSON: How will the Obama administration react to this? Will they come out directly and say that this is unconscionable, that this can go on when they claim to be a democracy, or will they take an easier tact [sic] on it?

MCCAIN: Well, initial reports by, quote, administration officials, are that they say that they’re not going to change their policy of dialogue, et cetera, et cetera. I think they should be condemned, and it’s obvious that this was a rigged election and depriving the people of their democratic rights. We are for human rights all over the world.

Watch it:

As with McCain’s impetuous response to the Georgia crisis last summer, his first reaction to the events in Iran is condemnation and a call to “act.” By contrast, the Obama administration seems to understand that knowing when not to act is just as strategically important as knowing when to do so, and that the most productive thing the United States can do for Iran’s reform movement — and human rights — at the moment is to keep itself, to the extent possible, out of the equation.