So it appears, via Yglesias, McCain has chosen the Denial Option. He told Meredith Viera:

I have been there too many times. I’ve met too many times with him, and I know what they want. They want it based on conditions and of course they would like to have us out, that’s what happens when you win wars, you leave. We may have a residual presence there as even Senator Obama has admitted. But the fact is that it should be — the agreement between Prime Minister Maliki, the Iraqi government and the United states is it will be based on conditions. This is a great success, but it’s fragile, and could be reversed very easily. I think we should trust the word of General Petraeus who has orchestrated this dramatic turnaround.

Yglz comments that only through McCain’s awesome powers of telepathy can we determine that Maliki, that Wily Oriental Gentleman, really wants the opposite of what he says he wants. And, yes, LOLs all around — the denial of reality is both striking as it is reminiscent of Bush, and McCain’s constant invocation that he supported the war/the surge/no previous non-surge strategy is meant to tell us, "Look, I don’t deny reality like that other warmongering GOP president…" So, yup: fucked fucked fucked.

But there’s more at work here. Notice that McCain just punted to Petraeus. But what’s Petraeus supposed to do? What’s Odierno really supposed to do? Say that Maliki, whom Odierno at least will have to work really closely with, doesn’t actually mean what he says about withdrawal? Sure, neither general will want to put McCain into a bind, but as commanders of over 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, they have the responsibility of not provoking anti-American Iraqi nationalism — something inevitable if they say, "Well, the prime minister obviously doesn’t favor timetables for withdrawal." If I was an Iraqi and I saw my once-hated prime minister finally start to represent me but a possible American president and two American generals immediately contradict him in the service of an open-ended occupation, I’d say that all politics has failed; the Americans have rigged the game; and Martha, go get my EFPs.

John McCain just popped a Cialis and fucked Petraeus and Odierno.