Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen writes about Iraq, 2013, and the opening that has been created by the refusal of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards to take a strong position on ending the US involvement in Iraq. Yepsen writes:
[Dodd's] an experienced politician. He knows how the caucus game often breaks late. Because of his 33 years of experience in Congress, he also knows something about U.S. foreign policy and the war in Iraq.
He does get agitated about that, particularly when the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination appear to be in no big hurry to get out. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all declined in last week's debate to say they'd have U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term - in 2013.
"I was stunned, literally stunned" to hear them say that, Dodd said in an interview for last weekend's Iowa Press program on Iowa Public Television. "It was breathtaking to me that the so-called three leading candidates would not make that commitment. That's six years from today."
"The one issue that gave us the majority in the House and Senate last year was Iraq. It's the dominant issue in the country. We're spending a fortune, $10 billion a month. Reconciliation is no closer today. I think for anybody out there wondering whether or not Democrats get this at all, or not ... to stand up and say six years from now, I will not make the commitment that U.S. forces will be out of Iraq, I found breathtaking."
And therein may lie an opportunity in Iowa for Dodd and the two other back-of-the-pack Democratic candidates, Bill Richardson and Joe Biden. All three of them promise to have U.S. combat troops out of Iraq well before that date.
While it's clear the three front-runners are hedging their bets, trying to be presidential by refusing to get pinned down on a key question, many Democratic activists are looking for something more definitive.
That gives those second-tier candidates a chance. That's because the Democratic presidential race has essentially been fought to a draw among the three front-runners in recent weeks. The Clinton-Obama-Edwards camps are deadlocked. Polls show them in a statistical tie for first place. Nobody's breaking through.
Polling out today shows that a strong majority of Americans oppose the Bush administration's $190 billion supplemental funding request and Democrats and independents want to see Congress take action to end the war.
Senator Dodd's is the only candidate who's leading to end the war in Iraq now through his seat in the Senate. Yepsen notes, "the front-runners could fizzle if liberal Democratic activists think they're wimping out on Iraq - or would be wimps in November." Dodd has lead with clarity and conviction and no one will mistake his bold leadership on ending the war in Iraq for anything less than that.
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Comments: 5
I acknowledge their reticence to commit to that statement, since we may well have some kind of troop presence in Iraq for many, many years into the future. We might be welcomed by the Iraqi government to keep a few bases there, after all.
What they NEED to promise is that we will no longer be an active presence in Iraqi streets and managing police and military actions which they themselves should be handling.
Since our presence there has only stained, and continues to stain, our international reputation, leaving would only compromise the values of our warmongers. We did not go there in order to secure our country's patriotic values.
Even GW himself stated that there is no "victory signing" scenario for us in Iraq. The only people who will experience a sense of victory if/when this war winds down will be those Iraqi people that survive the conflicts we created.
We, the American people, will always have a nagging sense of discomfort, disappointment, disenchantment, disgust and confusion over whether or not invading Iraq fits the patriotic values that beat in our hearts.