Reply #22: You're right and I would add the question what would be

[chieftain]

doing there if violence had disappeared. McCain is tacitly admitting that we need to keep a huge armed force in the Mid-East regardless of the situation on the ground in Iraq. If there is violence, we have to stay; if peace breaks out, we will still stay. McCain believes in an American Empire, one that is more effective than Bush runs but an empire nonetheless.