McCain: So wrong, so what?

McCain's had five long years since then to reflect on just how well Sunni and Shiite groups are getting along, but he's still having a tough time keeping the whole thing straight. In Jordan this past March, he pronounced it "common knowledge ... that Al Qaeda" -- a Sunni-dominated group -- "is going back into Iran" -- a country led by hard-line Shiites -- "and receiving training ... from Iran." Oops

A slip of the tongue on McCain's part? That would be easier to buy if McCain hadn't repeated variants of the claim on multiple occasions, insisting to a Texas audience in February that Iran was aiding Al Qaeda and wondering during Senate hearings if Al Qaeda in Iraq was "an obscure sect of the Shiites overall? ... Or Sunnis or anybody else."

McCain seems more than a little confused about who's who in the Middle East, which is maybe why he's so dead-set against the idea of talks with anyone not already a U.S. ally. It's always embarrassing, from a diplomatic perspective, to have no idea who you're talking to.

But back to Iraq. McCain has rarely questioned the overall Bush administration Iraq strategy, and he recently reaffirmed his commitment to maintaining U.S. combat troops there until Iraq becomes "a peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state." "We will have victory," he promised. But he's never explained how a strategy that's failed so far is going to magically start succeeding in 2009.

Of course, maybe his success -- for the time being -- with the American public has convinced McCain that if you just repeat something long enough and confidently enough, people will start believing it. McCain keeps boasting of his own national security expertise and insisting that Barack Obama, his chief Democratic rival, is naive and "does not understand ... the fundamental elements of national security and warfare" -- even though Obama, unlike the "experienced" McCain, managed to get it right on Iraq from the very beginning.

And astonishingly -- mysteriously! -- polls suggest that a majority of Americans are buying McCain's line.

If you're one of them, there's this bridge I'd like to sell you. And there's an upcoming tour of the Bermuda Triangle that might interest you too.

--

rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com