I know it is easy to assume that John McCain is trigger happy and a flaming war monger. I, too, have read in recent years about how many wars McCain would have us in if it were up to him. I get it. But looking at the 2000 John McCain, a wildly different beast than the 2010 (and even 2008) version we see so readily on television today, I wonder if President McCain, elected in 2000, would have been so eager to go into Iraq. Is it possible that McCain - a veteran himself of Vietnam - would so easily have gone to war under false pretenses.
In reading Bush by Jean Edward Smith, I've become amazed at how Bush structured his White House as an echo chamber. His staff knew what he wanted to hear and had the subcabinet execute accordingly. According to Bush and Rumsfeld himself in Known and Unkown, the Secretary of Defense had his own reservations about the conduct of the war.
Would McCain, without this echo chamber, seek out the War in Iraq as flagrantly as George W. Bush? Or would the former war hero understand the costs of war and not invent a cause for one?
I think there are merits to both arguments, and am interested to hear what others have to say.