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McCain on PBS NewsHour Thursday

What’s wrong with this picture? Why didn’t anybody tell me Sen. John McCain has joined the left wing of the Democratic party?

It looks like McCain is going all cautious on the Administration, accusing Obama of “antagonizing the Pakistanis” with his “in your face attitude.” I thought that’s what Republicans believe presidents should do.

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Is McCain scared of something we don’t know?

In an interview Thursday with PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff (see clip below), McCain said that the administration’s encouragement of India taking a more active role in Afghanistan while simultaneously criticizing Pakistan could be a recipe for disaster.

“To further antagonize Pakistan unnecessarily is not something I would particularly think is appropriate,” said the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “It’s a very delicate situation, one in which I would be very careful what we say publicly,” especially because the Pakistanis “are supporting organizations that are killing Americans.”

“I would have nurtured this relationship with India sort of the way we have been for years, rather than sort of antagonizing the Pakistanis even more with this kind of in your face attitude,” he said.

PBS quoted Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta saying to reporters in Afghanistan last week that the United States was “reaching the limits of our patience” with Pakistan, for offering a “safe haven” for the Haqqani network, from which they attack U.S. forces.

Panetta visited New Delhi, to encourage the Indians to take a “more active role” in Afghanistan.

McCain said that he would “do it more quietly” on India.

McCain told Woodruff that Pakistan’s duplicitous behavior “doesn’t mean that we also cut off all relations with Pakistan because then it could become even more unstable and we could have even greater challenges since they have a nuclear inventory, among other things.”

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Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. He has published Dancing and Crying, a colorful and intimate portrait of the last two years in the life of the late Lubavitch Rebbe, (in Hebrew), and two fun books in English: The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption, and How Would God REALLY Vote.