Last week, at just about the same time that a bomb struck a bus in Iraq, killing the children on board, Senator John McCain declared of Iraq that, “Success – the establishment of a peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state that poses no threat to its neighbors and contributes to the defeat of terrorists – this success is within reach.”

It was a sign of a special kind of blindness on the part of John McCain when it came to Iraq - the same kind of blindness that led him once to declare, after going to an Iraqi market wearing a bullet proof vest, surrounded by scores of armed soldiers and helicopter gunships, that life in Iraq had returned to normal. McCain cannot grasp that his beloved “surge” strategy, which turns out to be a permanent military escalation, is not working.

Yesterday ought to have been another moment of reconsideration for McCain. Bombs went off across Iraq, killing scores of civilians. It was a reminder that the peace and stability that John McCain has been promising for years, declaring victory way back in 2003, has never been delivered.

John McCain and his Republican allies in Congress and the White House have failed for 5 years to deliver on their Iraq promises. Why would anyone believe the new promises they are making about Iraq now?