John McCain’s scorching comments from 2014 have escaped the vault and show that the deceased senator knew all too well about the capabilities and mindset of one of the key planners of the Afghanistan catastrophe that we’ve seen this week, seven years later.
McCain discussed Antony “Tony” Blinken when he was under review by the Senate for a spot as deputy secretary of State under Obama. At that point, Blinken had fought to fully get out of Afghanistan, with no remaining military force to keep the Taliban in check. Sounding like Nostradamus, McCain not only called Blinken “unqualified” to help run State, but “dangerous.”
“I rise to discuss my opposition to the pending vote concerning Mr. Antony ‘Tony’ Blinken, who is not only unqualified but, in fact, in my view, one of the worst selections of a very bad lot that this president has chosen.
…[T]his individual has actually been dangerous to America and to the young men and women who are fighting and serving it.”
He went on to discuss Blinken’s role in “conceptualizing” and “furthering” President Obama’s disastrous foreign policy.
“U.S. foreign policy is in a shambles. It’s at best a strategic, and, at worst, anti-strategic.
[…] I’ll move on to Afghanistan. Mr. Blinken said quote ‘We have been very clear. We’ve been consistent. The war will be concluded by the end of 2014. We have a timetable and that timetable will not change.
This is why I am so worried about him being in the position that he’s in. Because if they stick to that timetable I am telling my colleagues that we will see a replay of Iraq all over again. We must leave a stabilizing force behind of a few thousand troops.”
Here’s a video of portions of McCain’s prescient speech.
In 2014, John McCain warned the world about Antony Blinken. He was right. pic.twitter.com/2zfI8eXPIK
— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) August 17, 2021
But that’s not the half of it.
In December of 2014, senators voted 55 to 38 to approve Blinken’s nomination. All 38 nay votes were from GOP senators.
In 2015, Blinken midwifed the disastrous pallets-of-shrink-wrapped-cash Iran nuclear deal in which the Obama administration paid off the mullahs to stop their nuclear program. McCain demanded the deal be scrubbed.
By 2021, senators had forgotten McCain’s words and voted 78 to 22 to confirm Blinken’s nomination to secretary of State. All the nay votes were Republican.
In June of 2021, Blinken acknowledged what any sentient being could have told him – that Iran was “galloping” toward its nuclear program.
In July of 2021, Blinken received an internal memo outlining how calamitous a quick pullout from Afghanistan would be and how the Afghan Army would never be able to hold Kabul.
He advised Joe Biden to do it anyway.
In August, Afghanistan was lost.
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld coined an aphorism which is now a Washington cliche: “personnel is policy.”
Joe Biden knew Tony Blinken’s record and hired him as secretary of State anyway. The U.S. Senate went along.
America got exactly what Joe Biden wanted: a disaster.
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