McCain adviser on Iraqi PM's Obama endorsement: 'We're f**ked

Senator John McCain ridiculed Senator Obama's timetable for Iraq withdrawal as a tactic aimed only at getting votes.

For the Iraqi Prime minister, it apparently worked.

The clear endorsement of Senator Barack Obama by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Saturday morning came as a strong blow to the McCain campaign.

McCain has claimed a superiority to Obama in matters of foreign policy as a major selling point to his candidacy for president, but that position is more difficult in the wake of al-Maliki's statement.

After hearing of the announcement, a sometime adviser to the McCain campaign said in an email, "We're f**ked," according to Mark Ambinder of The Atlantic.

A senior McCain campaign official responded to Ambinder about the development.

"His domestic politics require him to be for us getting out," he said on the condition of anonymity. "The military says 'conditions based' and Maliki said 'conditions based' yesterday in the joint statement with Bush. Regardless, voters care about [the] military, not about Iraqi leaders."

But it will be difficult for McCain to deny his own statement in 2004 that the United States would have to leave Iraq if the nation's leaders requested it.

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QUESTION: Let me give you a hypothetical, senator. What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there? I understand it’s a hypothetical, but it’s at least possible.

McCAIN: Well, if that scenario evolves, then I think it’s obvious that we would have to leave because — if it was an elected government of Iraq — and we’ve been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government, then I think we would have other challenges, but I don’t see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.

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McCain's criticism of Obama as less able in matters of foreign policy has increased during the week leading up to Obama's trip overseas which began this weekend and will continue into next week.

"This success that we have achieved is still fragile and could be reversed," McCain said to Reuters Thursday. "And if we do what Sen. Obama wants to do, then all of that could be reversed," and leave behind chaos and Iranian influence, he said.

A ad released by the McCain campaign Friday sharply criticized Obama of shifting positions on Iraq "to help himself become president."

An MSNBC story discusses McCain's attacks on Obama leading up to his trip to Afghanistan and other Middle East countries.