So Senator Clinton favors beginning the withdrawal of U.S. troops, but refuses to commit to a full drawdown before January, 2013. She is therefore leaving the door open to keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for approximately 10 years–depending on the strategic realities, the threat posed by Iran, the interests of our Iraqi partners, etc.
How exactly is this position different from that of President Bush?
Michael Goldfarb. Weekly Standard [1].
Addendum: (Bit)
Well, precisely. What Hillary Clinton is there for arguing for is precisely the argument that President Bush has had all along, and General Petraeus with him, lately.
Let’s go to the transcript:
“You know, I’m not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges, because I don’t know what I’m going to inherit, George. I don’t know and neither do any of us know what will be the situation in the region. How much more aggressive will Iran have become? What will be happening in the Middle East? How much more of an influence will the chaos in Iraq have in terms of what’s going on in the greater region? Will we have pushed Al Qaeda in Iraq out of their stronghold with our new partnership with some of the tribal sheikhs or will they have regrouped and retrenched? I don’t know and I think it’s not appropriate to be speculating.”
We stay until the jobs done. That’s been the dirty little secret here, all along; Hillary Clinton is not going to pull the troops out of Iraq, until such time as the job is completed. That’s because , if for no other reason, she doesn’t want be settled with defeat in Iraq. Politically untenable, to say the least.
But she still has the rabid left to deal with, so she comes up with gems like this, on a different show, on the same morning :
“I don’t believe we should continue to vote for funding that has an open-ended commitment, that has no pressure on the Iraqi government to make the tough political decisions they have to make, or which really gives any urgency to the Bush administration’s diplomatic efforts.”
So, which is it? I suppose it depends on the demographic that she’s talking to any given moment. Clearly, however, if you trust this woman, you’re clearly not paying attention to what she’s saying. … from either side of her mouth.