Going back on a claim that the US would be in Iraq for a hundred more years, John McCain announced yesterday that it would only take four to end the war, thereby inferring the remaining 96 would then be spent in peacekeeping. He described his picture of Iraq in 2013:

“The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced.”The Republican senator said that although the United States would still have a troop presence in Iraq, those soldiers would not need a “direct combat role” because Iraqi forces would be capable of providing order.

McCain also predicted that al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden would be captured or killed within four years and the militant group’s presence in Afghanistan would be reduced to remnants.

On the economy, he promised taxpayers the option of filing under a simpler system than the current multilayered code and said he would overhaul government spending practices that have led to “extravagantly wasted money.”

McCain then promised that by the end of his first term, magical pixie fairies would visit every US household and grant three wishes. He did note though, that each wish had to be an individual wish, and that wishes for more wishes would not be honored. GOP officials had urged McCain not to mention the “no wishes for more wishes” qualification, but apparently he did not listen to them. A senior McCain campaign official stated under condition of anonymity that McCain’s hearing was “just fine,” and that he wasn’t going to take marching orders from the GOP because he’s a “maverick.”