How Neighborly of Them

As if it weren't already obvious enough that John McCain is quite a different animal from most of his compatriots in the Republican Party, to say nothing of the rest of the country, consider these numbers from Gallup, courtesy of Matthew Yglesias. 79% of Democrats and 70% of Independents favor negotiations with "enemy" leaders, as do a surprising 48% of Republicans. This, of course, begs the question of how exactly such negotiations go against "what America stands for," as McCain has alleged previously.

In other news, the Obama campaign had it exactly right when they said recently that the Iraq War "has done more to dramatically strengthen and embolden Iran than anything in a generation," and that McCain's argument that withdrawal from Iraq would be a boon for Iran should therefore be taken with a vein of salt. Indeed, just about the only thing the Iraq War has accomplished is giving the Iranians confidence and object lessons in how to stand up to the Iranian military, much as Israel's disastrous invasion of Lebanon in 2006 did wonders for Hizbullah's popularity and influence.

Furthermore, it's not exactly like the American presence in Iraq is preventing the Iranians from doing much of anything. The centrifuges at Natanz and Bushehr are still spinning away, and while Ahmadinejad's recent showing in the parliamentary elections may not be a vote of confidence for him in particular, the radicals show no signs of closing up shop in the Majlis. We would be leaving Iraq in a state of disarray, and the Iranians couldn't exactly waltz right through it on the way to Israel - even ignoring all of the IEDs and roadside bombs, the large Sunni population in Iraq probably doesn't have particularly high opinions of Iran (both because of Iran's Shi'ite tendencies and because of grudges from the brutal Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s). And don't talk to me about how we can't let the Middle East descend into general chaos: America, not Iran, is far and away the most destabilizing presence in the reason.