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    Note to Iowa: Only One Top Dem Will End Iraq Occupation
    By Joshua Holland
    AlterNet

    Thursday 03 January 2008

The rhetoric sounds much the same, but there are real differences in policy.

    According to the National Journal, the Democratic candidates' "disputes over issues have almost completely evaporated in the campaign's final days." The leading Dems, according to the Journal, are beating each other up over who has the most effective "leadership style" or similar abstractions. The notion that the top candidates are virtually identical on the issues and vary only in "tone" - with Clinton the voice of experience and pragmatism, Obama the feel-good "uniter" who can heal a divided country and John Edwards the aggressive economic populist - has become, to some degree, the conventional wisdom of campaign 2008.

    But, as is often the case, it's also simply wrong.

    While it's true that the big three have similar stances on a number of issues, on Iraq - the one that Democrats and swing voters say is either their top concern, or No. 2 after the economy - the top candidates' differences couldn't be more significant. In fact, only John Edwards among the top three Dems would effectively end the occupation of Iraq within a year of taking office.

    All three top candidates certainly sound like they'd end it. In a Sept. 26 debate, Barack Obama said that if elected, "the first thing" he would do is "initiate a phased redeployment." "Military personnel," he continued, "indicate we can get one brigade to two brigades out per month. I would immediately begin that process. We would get combat troops out of Iraq."

    Hillary Clinton also says she favors ending the war in Iraq, "not next year, not next month - but today." The right strategy in Iraq, she said, is to "start bringing home America's troops now." Just like Barack Obama, "one of Hillary's first official actions" in office, according to her campaign website, would be "to convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, her secretary of defense, and her National Security Council" and "direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting" within the first 60 days after her inauguration.

    Sadly, both candidates are trying to get away with a bit of sleight-of-hand: Both are attempting to confuse a troop draw-down (or, in Clinton's case, appointing a commission to plan one) with an end to the occupation of Iraq. In reality, the two are as different as night and day.

    Both Clinton and Obama have bought into the dangerous idea that the U.S. must maintain forces in Iraq to protect U.S. bases - yes, they're actually saying that we need to leave soldiers to guard the bases that the U.S. built to house the troops occupying Iraq - to fight "al Qaeda in Iraq," and to help train Iraqi forces. Obama has said that he envisions a less expansive mission than Clinton does, and would contemplate basing some of his "residual forces" outside the country. Both of the candidates are reluctant to say exactly how many troops would be needed to accomplish the job, but independent estimates range from at least 20,000 to as many as 75,000 soldiers. John Edwards stated the obvious when he told the New York Times: "To me, that is a continuation of the occupation of Iraq."

    Only two candidates have proposed a complete pullout of U.S. troops: Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. But John Edwards has come very close to their position, saying that he'd only train Iraqi troops outside of Iraq and leave no troops to "guard U.S. bases." And, while he'd keep a rapid-response force in the region, it too would remain outside the country's borders. Unlike Obama and Clinton, he's put a hard number on what he thinks is necessary to keep in-country - only a single "brigade of 3,500 to 5,000 troops to protect the embassy and possibly a few hundred troops to guard humanitarian workers." He'd pull the rest out within ten months.

    Both Clinton and Obama have refused to commit to ending the "mission" before 2013. It's not about training Iraqi troops; it's about the two trying to win an election while continuing to support a deeply unpopular occupation. "Training" security forces doesn't require more than ten years to complete, and it's only the presence of U.S. troops on Iraq's soil that allows "Al Qaeda in Iraq" to operate in the first place. It's a simple matter of two candidates who want to have their cake and eat it too, and for the most part the commercial media's helped obscure that crucial fact.

    Clinton and Obama's camps would deny that they favor continuing the "war" in Iraq, but that debate is irrelevant. Nothing could matter less than whether American politicians believe leaving a "residual force" of several tens of thousands of U.S. troops is a continuation of the military occupation or not.

    Only Iraqis' opinions matter, because it's Iraqis who make up the insurgency and because all insurgencies require some support from the communities in which they operate. Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, has polled Iraqis repeatedly since 2004. He told me recently that "more than three-quarters of those Iraqis we polled believe the U.S. plans to establish permanent bases in Iraq," and "it appears that view is closely related to support for attacks on U.S. troops." In fact, he said, "among those who believe the U.S. will withdraw, just 34 percent favor attacks against U.S. troops, but among those who believe the U.S. will not withdraw, 68 percent favor attacking coalition forces."

    In other words, talk of a long-term presence in Iraq "emboldens extremists" and gets people killed. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say they'd withdraw all "combat troops" from Iraq, but the truth is that they've aligned themselves with the Bush administration's plan for an enduring, relatively large-scale military presence in the country for the foreseeable future.

    One hopes Iowans grasp that there's a lot more separating the leading Dems than just "tone."

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    Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.

 

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    Iowa: The Future Starts Here
    By Rupert Cornwell
    The Independent UK

    Thursday 03 January 2008

It's the most expensive, unpredictable and crucial presidential race in modern US history. And today, in one small state, people start to cast their votes.

    The phoney war is over. Tonight, in school rooms, church halls and private homes across the Midwestern state of Iowa, the first votes will be cast that actually count, kicking off the most unpredictable, the most expensive and arguably the most important presidential election season in modern US history.

    Hyperbole is the currency of American politics but this time the superlatives are justified. When the process at last comes to an end, spending by candidates will have far exceeded $1bn. The Democratic and Republican fields are uncommonly strong, but in neither is there a clear favourite. And never have the stakes been higher - not only for the US but for countries all over the planet.

    Every election in the world's lone superpower matters, but only a few of them qualify for the label of "transformational", those that set the country on a new course. 1932 was one, ushering in Franklin D Roosevelt, the New Deal and more than three decades of Democratic pre-eminence. Another was 1980, which brought to power Ronald Reagan and the conservatism that has dominated US politics ever since. Almost three decades on, 2008 has the potential to be the same.

    Iowa, of course, is just the start of it. Next Tuesday, New Hampshire holds the first primary of the season, this year more closely watched than ever. Tuesday, 5 February has already been called "Tsunami Tuesday," when up to 22 states hold primaries and caucuses. Conceivably, the outcome will be settled then. If not, however, the primary season continues until early June. Then come the nominating conventions, followed by a two-month general election campaign proper that culminates on 4 November, when Americans will finally choose their 44th president.

    The process, under way in effect since the mid-term elections of 2006, is desperately cumbersome. But this time the wait will be worth it. If ever a country needed time to assess its problems and deliver a considered verdict on how to tackle them it is the troubled, uneasy America of today.

    Election 2008 is a turning point. Not just because, for the first time since 1928, no incumbent president or vice-president has sought his party's nomination. Nor simply because the country yearns for a new beginning after the failures of George Bush or that, for the first time, both a woman and a black person have a real chance of winning the prize. Above all, the sense is palpable that conservatism, Reagan and Bush-style, has run out of answers.

    On every side, problems loom. The war in Iraq may be going slightly better but elsewhere in the Middle East, tensions only seem to grow. At home, the mortgage crisis and ensuing credit crunch, soaring energy costs and a tumbling dollar make recession this year at least an even money bet.

    Mr Bush may be the most unpopular president in a generation but the approval rating of the Democratic-run Congress is even lower. Then there are the wider concerns, globalisation, global warming. Almost 70 per cent of the population believes the country is "on the wrong track" - more than at any moment in almost two decades.

    And it is not just the locals who have had enough. What the US does affects many countries more than anything their own politicians get up to. Foreign nationals may have no votes in Iowa this evening but, like Americans, they are demanding change. Be it Iran or global warming, the world wants co-operation, not confrontation, from the US.

    If the pendulum of US politics is swinging in 2008, it is equally clear it is moving towards the Democrats.For all three of the party's top-tier candidates - Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards - change is the watchword. Their approaches, of course, differ. Mrs Clinton advertises her "experience" as the best means of achieving change. Mr Edwards exudes anger at the ever widening gap between rich and poor. Mr Obama promotes his youth and freshness, and his ability to transcend partisanship.With one exception, the issues uppermost in voters' minds are Democratic issues. Soaring healthcare costs, anxieties about the economy and jobs have supplanted discontent with Iraq. On all of them, Americans trust Democrats more than Republicans. Conservatism, above all as practised by Mr Bush, seems to have lost touch with the country's rhythms. That is one reason the little-known Mike Huckabee - who could be described perhaps as a "liberal" social conservative - has been the surprise of the Republican race so far. The exception, of course, is the issue of terrorism and national security. A violent new crisis in the Middle East, or another major terrorist attack on US soil, could yet propel John McCain, battle-tested in every sense, or Rudy Giuliani, or the former governor and successful businessman Mitt Romney to the presidency. If so, Americans would again have bought the familiar Republican sales pitch that "we can keep the country safe."

    Conceivably, even greater novelties are in store. The last time the American electorate was in so foul a collective mood was in 1992. That year, an eccentric Texan billionaire named Ross Perot won 19 per cent of the vote. This year's possible independent candidate is the eminently more reasonable figure of Michael Bloomberg, Mr Giuliani's successor as mayor of New York and, as of last year, no longer a member of either party. Mr Bloomberg denies such talk, but who knows?

    The Iowa Vote

    What: The caucuses are the first formal step in selecting party candidates for the November 2008 election.

    How: More than 1,700 simultaneous meetings to be held across Iowa, in which voters choose delegates to go to the county conventions.

    Why: The caucuses started in 1972 as a way to encourage more grass-roots participation.

    Population: 2,982,085

    Voters: 1.8 million.

    White 94.9%, Black 2.3%,

    Other ethnic groups 2.8%

    Key issues: Federal subsidies for ethanol, used by farmers

    Previous voting record:

    2004: Bush 50%, Kerry 49%.

    2000: Bush 48%, Gore 49%.

    1996: Clinton 50%, Dole 40%

    Current governor: Chet Culver (Democrat)