The Hill News

Conservative columnist George Will blasted Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for criticizing Republican calls to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Libya on Wednesday.

"John McCain and a few others believe Republicans who oppose U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war â€" and who think a decade of warfare in Afghanistan is enough â€" are isolationists," Will wrote. "This is less a thought than a flight from thinking. …"

Will's column, which is often considered highly representative of Republican sentiment, comes after McCain warned on Sunday that the GOP could become an isolationist party if it continues to call for a rapid withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and end to U.S. involvement in NATO’s Liby! a campaign.

Since then McCain has come under fire from both Republicans and Democrats. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) criticized McCain’s views as “uninformed.” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said describing calls for withdrawal as isolationist was “completely off-track.”

"McCain, however, says we must achieve regime change in Libya because if Gaddafi survives, he will try to ‘harm”’America," Will continues in his column. "This is always th! e last argument for pressing on with imprudent interventions (! see Viet nam, circa 1969): We must continue fighting because we started fighting."

Will also criticized Graham for calling to end U.S. involvement in Libya.

"Sen. Lindsey Graham â€" Sancho Panza to McCain’s Don Quixote â€" says “Congress should sort of shut up” about Libya. This ukase might make more sense if Congress had said anything institutionally about Libya," Will continued.

On Wednesday, President Obama announced plans to recall 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and plans to withdraw another 23,000 troops by September 2012. Advocates of a rapid withdrawal have cited a lack of strategic value for staying in Afghanistan as well as the hefty cost for the American presence.

In response to President Obama's plan, McCain repeated his concerns for leaving Afghanistan on Wednesday.

"I am concerned that the withdrawal plan that President Obama announced tonight poses an unnecessary risk to the hard-won gai! ns that our troops have made thus far in Afghanistan and to the decisive progress that must still be made," McCain wrote in a statement. "This is not the ‘modest’ withdrawal that I and others had hoped for and advocated."