John McCain on the Cowardly Antony Blinken

Most people are somewhat aware of what Sen. John McCain had to say about one Antony Blinken in 2014. At the time the Obama administration had nominated Blinken to be the Deputy Secretary of State. To that McCain took vigorous exception.

His words ring prophetic today, especially because, as McCain noted himself, he was not in the habit of opposing presidential nominations just for the fun of it.

And yet, McCain, who apparently had worked with Blinken, believed that the man was a catastrophe in the making. As it happened, the catastrophe of America’s surrender of Afghanistan was precisely what McCain had warned against. And it has Blinken’s fingerprints all over it.

To be fair, Joe Biden, who may or may not have known what Blinken was thinking about Afghanistan, nominated the man to be Secretary of State. So, choosing Blinken turns out to have been a calamitously bad decision, one among many.

Breitbart offers a transcript of the McCain speech, delivered on the floor of the Senate.

“Madam President, I rise to discuss my opposition to the pending vote concerning Mr. Anthony ‘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,” McCain began. 

“I hope that many of my colleagues will understand that not often do I come to the floor to oppose a nomination of the president of the United States because I believe that elections have consequences,” he continued. 

McCain is also seen slamming Blinken, deeming the then-deputy national security advisor a danger to the United States.

“In this case, this individual has actually been dangerous to America and to the young men and women who are fighting and serving it,” he said. McCain also noted Blinken’s role in “conceptualizing and furthering” a failed foreign policy.

“U.S. foreign policy is in shambles,” he said. “It’s at best a strategic, and at worst, anti-strategic.”

McCain continued, quoting Blinken:

Quoting Blinken himself, McCain then described his concerns that the then-Obama official would push for a complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, leading to a “replay” of war-scarred Iraq:

“I’ll move on to Afghanistan. Mr. Blinken said, ‘We’ve 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’m 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 the replay of Iraq all over again. We must leave a stabilizing force behind of a few thousand troops or we will see again what we saw in Iraq.”

Seven years after McCain’s opposition to Blinken’s nomination, the latter serves as Secretary of State, with many claiming the events from this week proved the necessity of McCain’s warning.

Blinken was a fervent supporter of the Biden policy of surrender and withdrawal. He favored the policy before the fact. That is, before Biden placed this coward at the head of the State Department.

Blinken supported abject surrender and complete withdrawal. McCain argued that unless we leave a few thousand troops in Afghanistan the nation will collapse into an Islamist playground.

And then, Afghanistan also became a test case for American resolve and reputation. On that score, Blinken was also wrong, assuming of course that he understood anything beyond his fervent wish to surrender. 

By McCain’s lights, Blinken was not just wrong. He was a coward who was willing to sacrifice American interest and to slink off in the night. The more we learn about events in Afghanistan the more we see that McCain was right.