[sandgk]

Wonder if this will get characterized as:
"I was against a timetable for withdrawal before I was for a timetable for withdrawal"
Today - Columbus, OH

Sen. John McCain predicted today that the Iraq war would be won and most American troops would come home by 2013 if he is elected president, joining his Democratic rivals for the first time in offering a timeline for a large-scale military withdrawal.
McCain said only a small contingent of troops, in non-combat roles, would remain in Iraq five years from now. He said the drawdown would be possible because al-Qaeda in Iraq would be defeated and a democratic government would be operating in the war-torn country.

Previously during Bush Preisdency - and all the way through the primaries:

McCain previously had resisted offering target dates for troop withdrawals, saying that to do so would be tantamount to giving terrorists a timeline for defeat. During the Florida primary, he blasted former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for what he said was support of a withdrawal timeline. Democrats, meanwhile, pilloried McCain for saying American troops could remain in Iraq for up to 100 years -- a reference McCain later likened to the presence of U.S. bases in Germany or South Korea.

A more brusque appraisal of McCain's vision of the end of the Iraq War here: (HP)

After yet another crushing special election loss for the GOP, and with Obama's national numbers building strength against his rival, John McCain has realized the need to take a new direction, beginning today with a horrifyingly disingenuous speech.
....
As a result, McCain has decided to break with his own precedent, and to claim that, unlike all of his previous statements, he expects an end to the Iraq war by the end of his first term. In a major address today, McCain envisions that, by January 2013, we will be welcoming most of our troops home. He sees that future as one in which "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." This latest suggestion is, in its most positive light, a political ploy. And it is preconditioned on the impossible.
If he believes what he is saying, then McCain is yet again showing a passing understanding of the conflict in the Middle East. Even by the most generous assessments, it would take at least sixteen months to withdraw our troops from Iraq. To have the bulk of our troops home by January of 2013, with his preconditions having been met, would require that McCain somehow achieve this functioning democracy and dramatic decrease in violence within two years of taking office. From where does he imagine he will find political reconciliation? In what sense can he expect a reduction in violence, given no evidence that a long-term reduction is sustainable? It is simply not feasible to assume that our exit from Iraq, if it were to coincide with the happy ending McCain portends, could possibly happen in either 100 years or on his new shortened timeline.
It is far more likely, however, that McCain does not believe what he is saying, that he has not in fact, had a genuine change of heart. The conditions on the ground in Iraq have not changed. But the political conditions for this election have. This is not an honest assessment from the self-appointed king of straight talk. It is rather yet another false promise, uttered with a straight face, as an attempt to survive an election, and with no intent to follow through.