McCain and the Draft

Last night Senator McCain was asked about the possibility of a draft to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He responded by saying:

“I don’t know what would make a draft happen unless we were in an all-out World War III.”

Many are taking this as Senator McCain saying that he will not bring back the draft barring some unforeseen circumstance. However, to play devil’s advocate, Conservatives have thrown World War III around quite a bit recently. Back in 2006, CNN’s Larry King asked Senator McCain if he agreed with Newt Gingrich’s statement that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the beginnings of World War III. Senator McCain responded:

“I do to some extent. I think it’s important to recognize that we have terrorist organizations which — who are dangerous by themselves, are now being supported by radical Islamic governments, i.e., the Iranians, which makes them incredibly more dangerous because they are trained, equipped, motivated and assisted in every way by the Iranians.”

President Bush also brought up the specter of World War III in a press conference from 2007:

So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very seriously. And we’ll continue to work with all nations about the seriousness of this threat. Plus we’ll continue working the financial measures that we’re in the process of doing. In other words, I think — the whole strategy is, is that at some point in time, leaders or responsible folks inside of Iran may get tired of isolation and say, this isn’t worth it. And to me, it’s worth the effort to keep the pressure on this government.

Now, we’re not in “an all-out World War III” like Senator McCain says he would need to see before he would resurrect the draft but he may believe we’re closer to that than it would first appear.