McCain: U.S. can win Iraq war within 4 years

updated 12:12 p.m. ET May 15, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio - John McCain , looking through a crystal ball to 2013 and the end of a prospective first term, sees "spasmodic" but reduced violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden dead or captured and government spending curbed by his ready veto pen.

The Republican presidential contender also envisions April's annual angst replaced with the option of a simpler flat tax, illegal immigrants living humanely under a temporary worker program, and political partisanship driven by weekly news conferences and British-style question periods with joint meetings of Congress.

In a speech Thursday, McCain conceded he cannot make the changes alone, but he wanted to outline a specific governing style to show the accomplishments it can achieve. He backed up his remarks with a Web ad featuring similar content.

"I'm not interested in partisanship that serves no other purpose than to gain a temporary advantage over our opponents. This mindless, paralyzing rancor must come to an end. We belong to different parties, not different countries," McCain told several hundred in the capital city of Ohio, a general election battleground. "There is a time to campaign, and a time to govern. If I'm elected president, the era of the permanent campaign will end; the era of problem-solving will begin."

Maverick McCain
To the disdain of some fellow Republicans, the likely GOP nominee has worked with Democrats on legislation aimed at overhauling campaign finance regulations, redrafting immigration rules and regulations and implementing government spending controls.

While that has cultivated a maverick image for McCain, the Arizona senator has also been accused of exhibiting a nasty temper — swearing even at fellow lawmakers from his own party — and unabashed partisanship.

In particular, McCain has clashed with the leading Democratic presidential contender, Barack Obama. After tangling with the Illinois senator on lobbying reforms, McCain questioned Obama's integrity in a publicly released 2006 letter.

McCain wrote he had thought Obama's interest in ethics legislation "was genuine and admirable," before adding: "Thank you for disabusing me of such notions." He accused Obama of "partisan posturing."

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While calling for Congress to drop mindless partisanship, McCain also chided the media — with whom he has enjoyed a generally positive relationship — for fueling contention with its campaign coverage.

"Campaigns and the media collaborated as architects of the modern presidential campaign, and we deserve equal blame for the regret we feel from time to time over its less-than-inspirational features," he said.

Looking ahead
Anticipating a key achievement of his administration, McCain said: "The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced."

Speaking to reporters afterward, McCain denied that by saying the war would be won by 2013 he was setting a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq — something he has criticized former rival Mitt Romney for doing.

"It's not a timetable; it's victory. It's victory, which I have always predicted," McCain said. "I'm not putting a date on it. It could be next month, it could be next year, it could be three years from now."

Video McCain: Bush and I agree to disagree May 1: Sen. John McCain begins his day with a cup of "Morning Joe," saying that, in the midst of the campaign, he is still incredibly focused on military and political progress in Iraq. Morning Joe

He distinguished himself from Obama and fellow Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton, who have both pledged to begin withdrawing U.S. troops if elected in November,

"I know from experience, you set a day for surrender — which is basically what you do when you say you are withdrawing — and you will pay a much a heavier price later on," McCain said.

In a statement, Clinton dismissed McCain's promise of victory in Iraq and said he "promises more of the same Bush policies that have weakened our military, our national security, and our standing in the world."

One more time?
In outlining other potential achievements of a first term in his speech, the 71-year-old McCain implicitly was suggesting he would seek a second term, an attempt to mute suggestions he would serve only four years after being the oldest president elected.

In particular, he sees a world in which:

• The Taliban threat in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced.
• "The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants," McCain said. "There still has not been a major terrorist attack in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001."
• A "League of Democracies" has supplanted a failed United Nations to apply sanctions to the Sudanese government and halt genocide in Darfur.
• The United States has had "several years of robust growth," appropriations bills free of lawmakers' pet projects known as "earmarks," public education improved by charter schools, health care improved by expansion of the private market and an energy crisis stemmed through the start of construction on 20 new nuclear reactors.

McCain also pledges to halt a Bush administration practice of enacting laws with accompanying signing statements that exempt the president from having to enforce parts he finds objectionable.

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