Well, well, well. She’s finally cleared up where she stands on the Iraq War. Frankly, I’m surprised and, admittedly, impressed that she waited this long to announce it. Although, one does wonder whether she this was was meant to coincide just two days after the Washington Times compared her to John Kerry and noted that she was losing ground to Edwards and Obama.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News in Baghdad, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., called the situation in Iraq “heartbreaking” and said she doubts Congress and the American people believe the mission here can succeed.
“I don’t know that the American people or the Congress at this point believe this mission can work,” she said. “And in the absence of a commitment that is backed up by actions from the Iraqi government, why should we believe it?”
…
Clinton had tough words for the Iraqi government, which she said has failed repeatedly to deliver on its promises.
“I’m skeptical that the Iraqi government will do what they have promised to do, and that I think is the concern of all of us who have heard this before,” she said. “All the promises, and intentions in the world don’t substitute for action and we haven’t seen a lot of action.”
Clinton traveled wearing body armor and surrounded by a phalanx of soldiers and security guards. The level of security, she noted, was much higher than her first visit to Iraq back in 2004.
“This is heartbreaking,” she said. “This is my third trip here. I’ve seen the violence and security problems increase, not decrease. The first time I was here, we’re not, you know, asked to wear body armor and put on helmets. We were not shepherded very narrowly from place to place. I went to Kirkuk the first time when actually Gen. Odierno was there, in charge of the 4th ID. We went into the city. We had a meeting in the town hall with people.”
Instead of sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, as President Bush plan, Clinton said it is time to start re-deploying U.S. troops out of Iraq.
“That would really demonstrate to the Iraqis that we don’t have an open-ended commitment,” she said. “We are not going to be here providing protection for their leaders, which we do. We are not going to be here standing by and trying to be called in from time to time as they see fit. That is not in the cards.”
It seems that she realized that she can no longer take the middle ground (if there is even one left). She risked being torn to shreds by the Democratic base, where almost 90% of them oppose the war. But is this enough to stop the bleeding and regain her dominance in the polls? We shall see.
January 13th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
So now each of the Big 3 on the Democratic side support the pull-out.
Again, a pull-out equals disaster in Iraq, unless that pull-out is accompanied by the installation of a stable, non-democratic government, such as a moderate alliance of Shia and Sunnis. This would actually allow us to pull out without facing a human rights crisis.
While I think that it’s possible we might force Maliki out, I think it’s more likely that we’ll leave Iraq a democratic mess and pull out after we’ve killed enough insurgents and jihadis to create the illusion of stability. But again, a democratic mess means the loudest voices — insurgents, the Mahdi Army, etc. — get to have their civil war, in which lots of people get killed and a Shia dictatorship is a foregone conclusion.
So it’s very likely that a pull-out equals Grand Leader Moqtada and thousands of Sunni corpses. Which will be the result of the policy that Hillary, Edwards, or Obama supported.
January 13th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Yup, exactly. It’s very interesting that the Democratic Big 3 all support a withdrawal and the Republican Big 3 all support the surge.
One of my biggest ultimate fears is what an Iraq with Muqtada al-Sadr at the helm means for the future of the region. He’d be backed by an aggressive and expansionist Iran that will have nuclear weapons within a few years. Iran also has Hezbollah, one of the strongest and best trained terrorist groups in the world, and they already have de facto control of Lebanon. If Sadr controls Iraq, that means that he’d have immense oil wealth to prop himself up and build a well equipped military. They could then use that to go after their arch rivals the Saudis and Israel. Would the US let that happen (regardless of whether there’s a Democrat or Republican in the White House)? We’d end up back in the region in a few years and it would be much more bloody. Given how stretched thin our military is now, if we went to war against Iraq again in the future, we’d have to vastly expand our military.
January 13th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Yup. All of that is very true. But never fear. We’re once again being promised “peace in our time.”
Gulp.
January 13th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
One more good reason to kill Mookie while we have the chance.
January 13th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I think a majority of Americans now support troop withdrawal, so maybe that statistic helped Hillary to clarify her position.
January 13th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Dave, I have some more excellent news for you (courtesy of the LA Times, reg req’d):
And it also looks like we won’t be taking out Sadr any time soon. Sorry, David.
Why would they ask you, Adnan? They want to kill you and wipe out all the Sunnis in Iraq. There’s an article in today’s Guardian that states that the Sunnis are now trying to use the Americans to protect them from the Shia in the police and Mahdi Army. If I were a Sunni I would try like hell to get out of the country as fast as possible. All the pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place.
January 13th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
I have to say, I’d gone from despising Hillary to finding her the most acceptable Democratic president. Because I thought her Iraq stance indicated some level of character I hadn’t expected, and a sort of courageousness that could mitigate a few of her various ideological flaws. Now, with Lieberman officially ousted from the party, there isns’t a single Democrat I’d even remotely trust to secure this nation. Not a blessed one.
January 13th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
I don’t blame Hillary for this move. It’s been clear for much of the past year that unless Hillary tried to appease her base, she would’ve had an extremely hard time, almost impossible even, to get the nomination. And her entire goal for these past 6 years has been to become President.
January 13th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
“So it’s very likely that a pull-out equals Grand Leader Moqtada and thousands of Sunni corpses. Which will be the result of the policy that Hillary, Edwards, or Obama supported.”
Geez DaveG,
Do you really think it will be this easy to shift the blame for the great disaster onto the Dems?
This debacle is 100% the responsibility of George Bush, and people like you – who have given him unquestioning support through all his mistakes.
and Matt writes:
“…there isns’t a single Democrat I’d even remotely trust to secure this nation. Not a blessed one. ”
And given the record of the past five years, there is a republican that you would so trust? ? ?
How badly do republicans have to screw up before you lose confidence in them?
Is the answer really – no amount of screw-ups would ever do so?
January 14th, 2007 at 12:26 am
“…and people like you – who have given him unquestioning support through all his mistakes.”
Heh. Just peruse the annals of this very blog sometime and you’ll be able to find me giving
Bush far less than unquestionable support on a whole variety of topics, including:
1) Spending
2) Creating a new entitlement
3) Giving the feds more power over education
4) Seeking to nationalize marriage policy
5) Confusing a personal religious and moral code with a conservative political philosophy
And yes, much of the problem in Iraq is due to the Bush Administration’s mistakes. Perhaps Bush went too far to the opposite end of the war president spectrum; LBJ was clearly one extreme, but Bush is another, deferring to the generals and DoD on everything. But a lot of the problem lies elsewhere too, including in the Iraqi people’s own pathologies, the unwillingness of the American people to commit to the long-haul, and the president’s inability to inspire the confidence needed in his governance for Americans to make that commitment. A more communicatively gifted president could make the case for American sacrifice to prevent another 9/11. Now I fear it will take either Ahmadinejad attempting to remake the Persian Empire, or a nuke going off in a major American city, or both for the country to make the kind of sacrifices that we made during WWII.
January 14th, 2007 at 1:09 am
LJ,
It’s interesting that Kagan is basically telling us not to piss off the Shia. I remember reading that Cheney is in favor of actually siding with the Shia against the Sunnis, and the last Kristol column I read basically makes the Shia sound like the guys with the white hats.
The fact that the leading neocons are basically saying, “Screw the Sunnis, the future is with the Shia” may reflect a sort of latent realism even within them. The Sunnis voted largely against the Iraqi constitution, and would probably prefer some sort of neo-Baathist state. At least with the Shia, we get some sort of democracy, no matter how flawed, say the Kagan forces.
It’s becoming clear that we’re going to crush the Sunni insurgency, kill a few more jihadis, and get out and let the Shia have the country, in which case it seems inevitable that we’ll have a mini-Iran within a few years, if not sooner. And then Iran has a clear path to Saudi Arabia…
Peace in our time.
January 14th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Dave,
I think the Cheney plan is potentially the most catastrophic idea being bounced around. Not only would we implicitly be supporting the annihilation of a entire people, but it really betrays a severe lack of understanding about the regional dynamics. While the Shia are the majority in Iran and Iraq, they are a minority in every other Middle Eastern country. So much so that out of the 1 billion Muslims worldwide, Sunnis make up 80%, Shia make up 15% and other sects make up the remainder. Having the Americans side with the Shittes against the Sunnis would be the biggest propaganda tool that Sunni terrorist could’ve ever hoped for.
If Iraq is to have a civil war, we should try everything we can to stop, or at least minimize and contain it, and then get out. But we need to be honest with ourselves about what happens when we withdrawal and what consequences it will have for Iraq and this country. The invasion was the first time that the American military tried to occupy a Muslim country. We went to depose a disgusting Sunni dictator and ended up starting a Shia revival in the Middle East unlike anything seen in hundreds of years. We could walk away from Vietnam, but Iraq has started something that will be bad consequences for generations to come.
“Peace in our time” is a good analogy, but it’s also terrifying. During WWII, the appeasers in Britain and France were beaten by the Nazis, but the United States’ entry into the war, turned the tide and helped the Allies win the war. But this time, the United States has been defeated and there’s no one to come to our rescue. I’m not sure once we withdrawal if we’d have the stomach to go back any time soon. We are tied to Iraq and the Middle East, probably for the next 20 years at least. It will take another massive attack to spur us into action again.
It’s enough to make me want move to Antarctica and hide…
January 15th, 2007 at 12:35 am
DaveG,
I was referring to your support for him on the war. And I kinda meant “you”, as in all you republicans.
I see from your latest remarks, and LJ too, that you are perhaps not quite as drunk on the koolaid as so many in the right-blogosphere.
Which only begs the question once again.
How can any of you, or any of us, have any confidence whatsoever in the Repbulican approach and instincts when it comes to foreign and military affairs?
Your guys (not just bush, but the whole GOP politico-intellectual apparatus) were given the ball to run with, with just enough time to get settled in when a big crisis emerged. And the nature of the crisis was that yo’all had 90% political support in the country and the sympathy and support of the rest of the world. And the decisions and instincts that y’all followed for 5 years has brought us here.
I dont mean to be too provacative here – but seriously, how can any rational person give you guys the ball for another 4 years. To relate this more directly to the theme of this site – how are you guys gonna answer critiques like mine?
Since Rudy is the main guy ’round here – what about him? He has shown absolutely nothing, over the past five years, to give any indication that he would have done anything differently than Bush did. How can anyone rationally grant him any credibility as a national security candidate?