After eight years of an administration that fudged intelligence to suggest a relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in order to get us into a protracted war in Iraq, are Americans really going to vote for a presidential candidate who is more than willing to fudge intelligence to suggest a connection between Iran and Al Qaeda in Iraq?
For the second day in a row, Sen. John McCain's campaign linked al Qaeda in Iraq to Iran -- an assertion Democrats say is misleading if not outright inaccurate. The McCain campaign, which acknowledged that the senator misspoke on Tuesday, insisted that its statement today is fully supported by facts.[...]
At issue is whether forces in Iran, an overwhelmingly Shiite nation, are supporting al Qaeda, a Sunni terrorist group. U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Iran's security forces have been training and supplying weapons to Shiite militants in Iraq (a charge Iran denies).
Less clear is Iranian influence on al Qaeda, but McCain's statement today asserted a link: "Al Qaeda and Shia extremists -- with support from external powers such as Iran -- are on the run but not defeated."
While polling apparently shows that the American public believes that John McCain has the experience and strength to be President, the very much lingering question remains as to whether McCain understands whatsoever the situation in Iraq and the broader Middle East. For weeks, McCain has personally been peddling the false claim that there is a connection between Iran and Al Qaeda in Iraq. He got caught in the act on Tuesday, only changing his tune at the behest of the very hawkish Joe Lieberman, only to have his campaign try to spin away his statement as a mere gaffe. As I argued yesterday, this was no gaffe, but rather a concerted effort by McCain and his campaign to paper over his misunderstanding of the region and of the war. This article from last night indicates they might not even be doing that anymore, resorting now to an attempt to reargue that there is a connection between Iran and Al Qaeda in Iraq.
With all of this in mind, I ask again: Even considering McCain's apparent strength in polling, are Americans really going to elect someone who is fudging the facts about a purported relationship between Iran and Al Qaeda in Iraq in the immediate wake of a presidency in which the administration went to great lengths to allege a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in order to get the country behind a war in Iraq?
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