Joe Klein has some indispensable advice as well as a retrospective insight for John McCain, insightful advice which McCain and his fellow neoconservatives have promptly dispensed with:
McCain’s trip is a perfect metaphor for the problem of involving ourselves with the Syrian rebels. ['A few years ago, McCain made a well-publicized walk through a Baghdad market, didn’t get shot at, and pronounced major progress in Iraq afterward. A few weeks later, I made the same walk but actually spoke to the shopkeepers—all of whom were supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shi’ite militia leader.'] We may be siding with the greater evil. We may be throwing fuel on a fire that could consume the region. Our track record when it comes to such things is dismal.
The secret of neocon ballsiness is exceedingly straightforward. It's ballsiness. Never concede reality, never admit errors in judgment, pound always with simplistic, absolute certainty and present nothing but apocalyptic options.
It's the specialized foreign policy edition of domestic, garden-variety demagoguery, which is why it suits Republican pols so well.