"McCain made the most notable misstatements and stumbled over the names of the leaders of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose name he couldn't pronounce, and of Pakistan, referring to the latter as "Qadari" instead of Asif Ali Zardari.
McCain incorrectly asserted that former Gen. Pervez Musharraf rescued Pakistan from being a "failed state" when he seized power in a 1999 coup.
Asked if he would send more troops to help contain the worsening war in Afghanistan, where U.S. combat casualties are now running higher than in Iraq, McCain said that he would, and that they would be used in the same strategy — a surge — that Obama "condemned in Iraq."
But senior U.S. defense officials say that a similar strategy can't be replicated in Afghanistan. They point out that the bulk of the additional troops sent to Iraq were deployed to contain violence in the densely populated neighborhoods of Baghdad, while the Taliban insurgency is based in the rugged mountains and sprawling deserts of Afghanistan."
