Capitulation

January:

”Now, one of my opponents wanted to set a date for withdrawal that would have meant disaster,” McCain said about Romney, at a stop in Fort Myers. Then McCain added, “If we surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do, and withdraw, as Governor Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos, genocide, and the cost of American blood and treasure would be dramatically higher.”

Yesterday:

[A]sked why he thought Mr. Maliki had called 16 months a potentially suitable timetable, Mr. McCain gave his enigmatic answer.

“He said it’s a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground,” Mr. McCain said. “I think it’s a pretty good timetable, as we should — or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions on the ground. This success is very fragile. It’s incredibly impressive, but very fragile. So we know, those of us who have been involved in it for many years, know that if we reverse this, by setting a date for withdrawal, all of the hard-won victory can be reversed.”

Democrats exulted, sending transcripts of the statement to reporters to suggest that Mr. McCain was coming around to Mr. Obama’s way of thinking. The McCain campaign did not explain the remark, but said Mr. McCain’s position continued to be that he wanted the troops to withdraw based on conditions on the ground.

What else could he do? The people we are supposedly protecting, the Iraqi government, wants us gone.