Sen. John McCain would like to see U.S. troops leave Iraq, but he wants any withdrawal to be for the "right reasons," and at a time when the country can remain stable and governable, he said in an interview with Monitor editors and reporters yesterday.

During his hour-long meeting, the Arizona senator held fast to his support for a current war strategy that has become unpopular, even as he took pains to distance himself from Bush administration war policy and the stances of his Republican opponents for the presidential nomination.

McCain, a former Navy pilot and prisoner of war, has long been a supporter of the Iraq war, but for years, he has criticized strategic choices made by the Bush administration, which he said squandered opportunities and allowed many of country's problems to escalate. But because of his vocal advocacy of the so-called troop surge, he is often identified with the administration's war policy, an association many say has cost him politically. In his remarks yesterday, he reiterated his optimism about the current strategy while sharply expressing his distaste for the early management of the conflict.

"For nearly four years, I railed against and spoke against and did everything I could to get us to get off of the failed strategy that was set forth and carried out by (former defense secretary Donald) Rumsfeld," McCain said. "He will go down with (Robert) McNamara as one of the worst defense secretaries in history."

McCain also laid blame for the war's mismanagement at the feet of the president, who McCain said did not do enough to inform himself about the possible repercussions of his military strategies.

"History will judge President Bush harshly, I think, in the respect that he didn't ask enough questions about the situation in Iraq," he said, though he credited Bush for ultimately changing course.

McCain identified myriad problems in Iraq: police corruption, infighting in the government, and pressure from Iran and other neighbors. Yet he also identified progress in recent months, saying the surge has helped stabilize areas of the country that had been riddled with violence. If that progress continues, a slow and methodical transition from U.S. forces to Iraqi military units could begin in a matter of months, he said. McCain said he imagines that troops could return to nearby bases before ultimately leaving the country.

"I want the troops back as much as anyone, but I want them back for the right reasons," he said.

McCain sought to contrast his position from that of his Republican rivals by suggesting that they had blindly supported the former, failed strategy as well as the new one.

"I'm the only one of the Republican candidates who railed against and fought against the Rumsfeld strategy," he said.

McCain, who often describes the country's battle against "radical Islamic extremism" as the "transcendent issue" of our times, said that failure in Iraq could have wide-reaching repercussions throughout the Middle East, weakening democratic governments and enabling terrorists.

McCain won the New Hampshire primary in 2000 and was widely perceived as a favorite for the Republican nomination when he entered the 2008 race, but turmoil inside his campaign and unpopular stances on the war and immigration have hindered his campaign and led to his slip in many local and national polls. Initially, McCain had planned a national campaign using staff from the Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election bid. Since July, he has dramatically scaled back his staff and refocused his campaign strategy on the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Yesterday, McCain said that he thought he had a good chance of winning the nomination through shoe-leather campaigning at small town-hall-style events. He said he thought it was too early to put much stock in polls and said he excelled at the face-to-face interactions that New Hampshire voters crave.

"I think I'm better than the other candidates at the kind of campaigning that wins elections here," he said.

But McCain has also subtly refashioned his responses on critical issues. In addition to discussing troop withdrawal, he also described a new attitude toward immigration reform. McCain had been a co-sponsor of a comprehensive congressional immigration bill that failed to pass this year. His Republican rivals characterized the bill as providing "amnesty" to illegal aliens, while McCain tried to sell the approach as critical to the country's national security.

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