Excerpt:But as much as McCain is linked to Bush on Iraq, he is even more closely tied to Gen. David Petraeus, the commander who devised and executed the counterinsurgency strategy that McCain was calling for long before Bush endorsed it.
When I read Petraeus' comments to The Washington Post, just days before McCain landed in Baghdad, I thought, "What an opening he has created for McCain." Cameron W. Barr, who interviewed the general for the Post, quoted Petraeus as saying that "no one" on either the Iraqi or U.S. side "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation" or the provision of basic services.
Petraeus told Barr that he and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker had "repeatedly noted that it's crucial that the Iraqis exploit the opportunities that we and our Iraqi counterparts have fought so hard to provide them."
That clearly opened the door for McCain, as a prospective president, to signal the government of Nouri al-Maliki that his patience with the political impasse is not inexhaustible. That impasse has blocked the needed oil law and inexcusably delayed setting a date for provincial elections that could lead to a federal system ? empowering Sunnis and Kurds.
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