Oh Oh. McCain is Flunking Middle East 101

McCain made such a fundamental error in describing the situation in the Middle East yesterday that just it cannot be overlooked. He apparently has more than once cited that Iran is helping Al Qaeda, which would be Shia helping Sunni, a laughable combination. No expert agrees. Is he dumb, senile, or pandering to the knee-jerk anti-Muslim crowd? None of the choices are pleasant to think about. This bears watching carefully.

Thankfully, with increasing frequency, McCain reminds us that he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about most of the time.

Sen. John McCain, traveling in the Middle East to promote his foreign policy expertise, misidentified in remarks Tuesday which broad category of Iraqi extremists are allegedly receiving support from Iran.

He said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives “taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.”

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”

All of this is, of course, wrong. Al Qaeda is Sunni; Iran is Shiite. This is “common knowledge.” McCain was speaking with authority about the basics in the Middle East, and getting the regional dynamic backwards.

This happens quite a bit with the Republican candidate.

The WaPo’s Michael Shear added, “The mistake threatened to undermine McCain’s argument that his decades of foreign policy experience make him the natural choice to lead a country at war with terrorists. In recent days, McCain has repeatedly said his intimate knowledge of foreign policy make him the best equipped to answer a phone ringing in the White House late at night.”