John McCain: Bomb-Bomb . . . Syria?

It happens in every profession, every walk of life.  One hangs in, hangs on, beyond the span of one's usefulness.  Begins to cross that thin, faint line that separates old-school from old-age, lovable codger from danger to the cause he claims to love.

I give you, Senator John McCain:

With NATO bombing of Libya set to end, U.S. Sen. John McCain on Sunday raised the possibility of some kind of military attack on Syria, where the government of Bashar Assad has been accused of brutally cracking down on protesters.

“Now that military operations in Libya are ending, there will be renewed focus on what partial military operations might be considered to protect civilian lives in Syria,” McCain (R-Ariz.) said at a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Jordan. “The Assad regime should not consider that it can get away with mass murder. Kadafi made that mistake and it cost him everything.”

Mercifully, Mr. Obama is finally about to extricate the United States from the colossal strategic blunder that was the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.  The American adventure in Afghanistan has reached a point perhaps best compared to a clogged commode in which the turds resist the inexorable erosion from the water's flow, only to be dislodged and flushed forever down the pipes.  The American digression into Libya now smells like a rose, its blooming from the fertilizing blood of local rebels; but the petals are likely to begin dropping within days.

The relatively new ethnic/sectarian confection that is Iraq must now do whatever it must do.  (Can we please step back and remember that "Iraq" is less than 100 years old - a drop in the bucket of the millennia that went into the making of what was Babylonia for  2000 years?  "Iraq"'s warranty may be about to expire.)  Those who accuse Mr. Obama of "losing Iraq" (now that he has announced that all US troops will be withdrawn from there in less than two months) need to remember that (those proponents of how "the Surge worked" notwithstanding) the US never "won" Iraq in the first place.  In the "Middle East," the US is the new kid from the block on the other side of town.  The Iranians are the next-door neighbors who've been standing in the parlor forever.  They're not going anywhere, and for the US to think that it can make them step outside, walk down to the sidewalk, and never come back is beyond stupid.

In other words, it's time for the US to exit, stage left, and get its own act together - especially at home - before it even thinks about riding to the rescue anywhere else in the Middle East.

And John McCain now tries to rattle the US sabre against Syria - even though the scabbard is empty?

Go home, senator.  Put on lots of sunscreen.  Stick to the shade.  

And remember that your time in the sun gave you cancer - and got a lot of Americans killed, in the cause of a "victory" that was never theirs to win.