“Bottom-up” Look at Iraq Strategy
Foreign policy experts with experience dating back to the Nixon administration have been tapped by the crowded field of presidential candidates, notes AP’s Barry Schweid. Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton and her primary rival Barack Obama are engaged in a spirited competition for former foreign policy advisers to President Bill Clinton, reports the Wall Street Journal’s Neil King. Thomas Edsall in the Huffington Post parses the Iraq war positions of these two camps and finds signals that “Clinton and Obama would, if elected, adopt substantially dissimilar approaches to international relations and to national security threats.”
This makes it intriguing to consider how Clinton and Obama will handle the issue of Iraq if the Bush administration’s new “bottom-up reconciliation” strategy so much in the news lately continues to gain traction. Clinton and Obama have so far carefully handled reports of progress on the surge while sticking to their call for troop withdrawal timelines. But they will likely soon face pressure – and votes in the Senate – on defense appropriations measures that could maintain funding levels for the war or revive Democratic plans for timelines that were criticized by a fairly broad number of defense analysts during the summer. John Edwards today ramped up his “no timeline, no funding” call, which was previously seen as effective in pulling the Democratic primary debate to the left on Iraq.
Among the Republican candidates, Sen. John McCain has given the most clearcut support for the administration’s “surge” strategy. Rudy Giuliani has backed the administration’s Iraq policy, too, without getting too specific. Mitt Romney is increasingly talking about the inevitability of a drawdown of U.S. troops, perhaps as early as next year, leaving some in the region in a “support role” away from the frontlines, as Politico reports. Soon-to-be-declared Republican candidate Fred Thompson has generally supported Bush administration policy, too, but has been vague about future planning of the war.
