The war in Iraq, arguably with the exception of the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, has been the single worst public relations disaster for a White House perhaps since Watergate. Yet for John McCain, the Iraq war, and Americans' confidence in his ability to lead the country to success, could be the only path to victory.

There is little question about how Americans view the war. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released late last month shows just 38% think the country is winning the war, while 46% say the country is losing. And only 34% say the war was worth fighting in the first place. President Bush, the man most associated with Iraq, has an approval rating of just 29% according to the latest RCP Average, while 67 % disapprove.

For Republicans, the war has been a political drag since at least early 2006 and the public's displeasure with Iraq helped contribute, along with rampant spending and the taint of corruption, to the party losing its Congressional majority in the November midterms. Throw in the economic turbulence in the ensuing year and half and it's not a complete surprise that GOP is facing its highest unfavorable ratings in recent memory. Given the party's tenuous financial as well as political position, the GOP could potentially find itself at such a disadvantage in the coming Congress that its influence on legislation will be minimal.

Given all this, conventional wisdom might suggest McCain should be running as fast as he can away from any mention of Iraq. But no issue offers so clear a distinction between the Republican and his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, and there are signs that McCain's side has traction with voters.

McCain has long said that he would rather lose an election than lose a war. His experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, as a leading advocate for veterans and as a top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee gives McCain a credibility that few other politicians can match: People believe him when he says he cares about the troops and, by extension, he knows what is best for them (In fact, people believe this about McCain to such an extent that, when General Wesley Clark questioned whether McCain's military experience made him qualified to be president, even Obama disassociated himself from Clark's remarks). The authenticity of McCain's intentions give him the opportunity to make a convincing argument about Iraq that President Bush was never able to make.

And while voters across the board trust Democrats on virtually every issue more than they trust Republicans, they place their trust in John McCain more than a generic member of his party. Matched up against Obama, 47% said they trust McCain to handle the war in Iraq more, while 46% say they trust the Democratic candidate, according to the ABC/Post poll.

Compare those numbers with those who trust the two candidates on other issues: If the election is fought on economic issues, 52% say they trust Obama, while 36% trust McCain more. Obama wins on gas prices, by a 50% to 30% margin, and on health care, by a 53% to 33% gap.

More people trust McCain on just two other issues the poll inquired of, and both can be linked to the war in Iraq. 49% trust McCain to handle international affairs better than Obama (43% say the Democrat would do better), while 53% say the Republican would better handle the war on terrorism than the Democrat (39% for Obama).

McCain also has recent experience to which he can point. Last year, as his presidential campaign teetered on the brink of collapse, McCain staked his entire bid on the success of the so-called troop surge, aimed at providing a hiatus in the violence so that a political solution might be found within the Iraqi parliament. Political solutions have yet to emerge fully, but violence has subsided -- the military reported fewer American deaths in the country last month than at any time since the March, 2003 invasion -- and McCain, who early in the campaign leveraged his position as a longstanding critic of the Bush Administration's initial approach to the war in Iraq, emerged as the champion of the new and, McCain would say, successful strategy.

Despite the weak Republican brand, and the fact that respondents frequently say they prefer a generic Democratic president by a dozen or more points, McCain is running only slightly behind Obama. That can largely be attributed to McCain's maverick image and his disassociation with his own party. While Obama won the initial battle between those who wanted change and those who valued experience against Hillary Clinton, the second round of that battle will be fought not just among Democrats, but among a more conservative general electorate.

In short, while it may look like political suicide, John McCain's only choice is to cast the war in Iraq as winnable, and to use his credibility on the issue to put the war, and what he will argue is his successful approach to winning, front and center. Having declared himself less than knowledgable about the economy, McCain will find his appeals on that issue a difficult sell. But his track record on Iraq, especially his criticism of and distance from the Bush Administration, makes a promise of success in the war a viable path by which McCain could win in November.