International Shia News Agency

DeBar: McCain is a consummate insider

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association)- American political commentator Don DeBar says Senator John McCain portrays himself as an outsider and maverick, but actually he is a consummate insider.

DeBar, an anti-war activist and radio host in New York, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Sunday while commenting on recent statement by McCain in which he said he was “seriously considering” and “leaning towards” running for reelection.

McCain acknowledged that he would be facing a very difficult primary campaign from the right. “You always have to plan for a very, very tough campaign with good competition.”

“I don’t think it can be a surprise to anyone that John McCain would seek a reelection. For all his pretence of being an outsider and maverick, he is a consummate insider. It would be 34 years between his time in the House and his time in the Senate,” DeBar said.

He added that McCain would be 80 years old in 2016, “which is pretty remarkable and that’s lot over than Barry Goldwater, who was his predecessor in that seat, was when he retired.”

“Whether McCain runs or someone else takes his place from Arizona given the condition of the electorate there, there will be another Republican most likely elected, and another conservative Republican, if that’s not a redundancy,” DeBar stated. “Even within the party’s confines McCain is a Republican, again despite his reputation for some kind of a maverick.”

“The impact, I think, of him staying or leaving on the policy of the United States will be minimal. He takes issues with President Obama on a number of foreign policy issues, particularly making war; only to the extent that he advocates taking the harder position and making more war than the President Obama does,” he noted.

“McCain’s influence as a national figure, I think, has waned considerably since his loss in the presidential election in 2008. And his real adventurism in going to various places, going to the streets in Maidan in Kiev, supporting what it turned out were Nazis, who seized control of the government there, and his meetings with the so-called Syrian moderates that turned out to be ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State, kind of shows that he is just a demagogue,” DeBar concluded.

McCain has frequently criticized the Obama administration on a range of foreign policy issues, including the troop drawdown from Iraq, diplomacy with Iran, and a reluctance to supply lethal arms to Ukraine and militants in Syria.

He was first elected to the Senate in 1986, was re-elected in 1992, 1998, 2004 and 2010. He was the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2008 and would be 80 at the time of the 2016 election.

The Arizona Republican is expected to chair the powerful Armed Services Committee in the new GOP-controlled Senate.

 

 

Source:PressTV

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