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On Iraq, Front-Runners' Records Match
By Maya Schenwar
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 16 January 2008
As leading candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama head into the Nevada
caucus, toting their bite-sized campaign slogans - "change," "hope,"
"experience" - the facts of their Senate pasts have faded from the
scene. Though both pledge to end the war in Iraq, Obama has made his antiwar
image a centerpiece of his campaign, drawing crowds of young supporters inspired
by his initial opposition to the invasion. However, Clinton and Obama's war
voting records in the Senate read virtually the same.
"One of the funny dynamics we've seen is Obama's people attacking Clinton
by tying her to supporting the war," said Robert Naiman, senior policy
analyst and national coordinator of Just Foreign Policy. "But it's hard
to say whether there are any meaningful differences between the two of them."
Obama and Clinton have shared the same stance on all major Iraq votes since
Obama entered the Senate. These include the approval of over $300 billion in
no-strings-attached war funds. The only war spending bill that Clinton and Obama
voted against was the 2007 version, which all four Senate presidential hopefuls
balked at because a withdrawal timetable was removed from the legislation. A
year before, both Obama and Clinton voted against attaching
a timetable for withdrawal to war funding.
Beyond spending, Clinton and Obama both voted to confirm key players in the
pro-war arena: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of Homeland Security
Michael Chertoff and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, among
others.
So what differentiates the two candidates on the war? Analysts have pointed
to their positions on Iran: Clinton voted to declare the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard a terrorist organization, while Obama did not, and Obama has encouraged
diplomacy between the US and Iran, which, according to Naiman, could significantly
aid in the stabilization of Iraq.
However, Obama did not vote against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard measure;
he was campaigning in New Hampshire when the vote was taken. And Clinton has
spoken out in favor of curbing the president's authority to singlehandedly initiate
war on Iran.
It's what happened before Obama's Senate term that dominates the war-record
comparison, according to independent foreign policy journalist Allan Nairn,
who blogs at newsc.blogspot.com. In particular, Nairn said, Obama is boosted
by an antiwar speech he made as a state senator in 2002, criticizing the invasion
of Iraq before it began.
"That's the one thing that sets them apart," Nairn said. "That
speech."
What They Say They'll Do
Both front-runners propose to begin withdrawing troops "immediately."
This pledge for an initial withdrawal, though, would essentially continue status
quo policy, and in itself is "not very meaningful," according to Naiman.
Troop levels will be falling anyway as the surge ends.
Beyond that, the Obama campaign's Iraq proposal centers around a 16-month goal
for bringing all "combat troops" home. It would leave troops in Iraq
to protect the American embassy and execute "targeted strikes" on
al-Qaeda. The "targeted strikes" language echoes a redeployment bill
that was blocked by Republicans in the Senate in November. (Both Obama and Clinton
voted to allow that bill to move forward.)
Obama's plan has the potential to efficiently end the war, although not as
quickly as it could be ended, according to Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics
at the University of San Francisco who also serves as the Middle East editor
for Foreign Policy in Focus. He maintains that the key question is how the phrase
"targeted strikes" is interpreted.
"In Obama's case, I'm guessing that it would be an option used only rarely
- such as taking out a recently discovered bomb factory or a particularly notorious
foreign cell responsible for terrorism - and not a cover for going after insurgents
in general," Zunes said. "These would be small, hit-and-run, special-forces
kinds of missions, not major ground offensives or sustained bombing campaigns."
However, the plan's open-endedness leaves some analysts skeptical. Calling
for some troops to remain in Iraq without a date for withdrawal leaves open
the possibility of a long-term presence. "Targeting al-Qaeda" is in
itself a fuzzy proposition, leaving the location and extent of a possible attack
ambiguous. Moreover, according to Nairn, allowing an unspecified number of soldiers
to remain for embassy protection is grounds for concern.
"The embassy in Iraq is going to be the biggest embassy in the world,"
Nairn said. "Just protecting that vast complex could require a fairly substantial
number of troops." Obama's plan does not specify the future of the more
than 180,000 US-paid private contractors positioned in Iraq.
Clinton's plan similarly allows for an extended presence in Iraq and excludes
mercenaries from the redeployment equation. Her proposal differs from Obama's
in that it does not identify a goal date for withdrawal. It states that upon
entering office, in addition to "immediately" beginning to bring troops
home, Clinton would direct her advisers to draw up a withdrawal plan based on
conditions at the time.
Although she has spoken in campaign speeches of ending the war as her "first
and most important mission as president," Clinton has also endorsed a long-term
limited troop presence. In a March interview with The New York Times, she stated
that a "military as well as political mission" remains to be accomplished
in Iraq.
At a September debate in New Hampshire, neither candidate would commit to a
guaranteed US withdrawal from Iraq by the end of their first term in office.
Moreover, there is nothing legally binding about a campaign promise, and both
Clinton and Obama have been careful to reserve the right to amend their proposals
as conditions change.
"Even if the candidates were to offer a more specific commitment, they
could always say in the future, 'That was then and this is now,'" Nairn
said. "Voters are being asked to buy something without opening the box.
They can't really tell what they'll be getting."
Judgment and Influence
In forecasting what each front-runner's Iraq policy would look like post-inauguration,
in-the-moment judgment may mean more than campaign proposal language, according
to Naiman. Zunes calls judgment the "biggest difference" between Obama
and Clinton, noting Obama's initial opposition to the war and his prediction
of its consequences. (Obama predicted an invasion would increase violence, instability
and mobilization of al-Qaeda forces.) Nairn, however, interprets that contrast
as a difference in circumstance, noting that Obama, not yet a US senator, had
more freedom to speak out against the war when it began - especially since his
overwhelmingly liberal constituents were likely to oppose the war themselves.
One key factor in Iraq policy - both on the campaign trail and in the White
House - is who the candidates choose to surround themselves with, according
to Naiman. "You're basically voting for the advisers," he said.
According to Zunes, Obama's advisers include a wide range of mostly liberal-leaning
Democrats. Foreign policy adviser Samantha Power, for example, has been an outspoken
critic of the war.
However, Nairn points to a few of the Obama crew's pro-war personalities. During
Bill Clinton's presidency, Obama adviser Anthony Lake led the push to invade
Haiti, then pressured President Jean Bertrand Aristide to embrace World Bank
and IMF involvement in the Haitian economy. Another adviser, General Merrill
McPeak, oversaw the delivery of fighter planes to Indonesia after the East Timor
massacre in 1991. Obama adviser Dennis Ross, a foreign affairs analyst on Fox
News, was a vocal defender of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
throughout his State Department career in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations.
On the Clinton side, adviser Jack Keane helped craft last year's "surge"
policy in Iraq, while Michael O'Hanlon was an avid surge supporter. Advisers
Richard Holbrooke and Wesley Clark, who both worked for Bill Clinton's administration,
have bounced back and forth between support and skepticism on the Iraq war.
Although the slate of pro-war personnel on the Clinton and Obama teams may
be rich for analysis, comparing and contrasting the contenders' advisers won't
necessarily make for an informed decision, according to Nairn.
"Once a candidate is chosen, all of their advisers are pretty much interchangeable,"
Nairn said. So an Obama administration might be just as likely to include O'Hanlon
as it would to include Power.
Self-Fulfilling Promises?
Regardless of the front-runners' voting records and policy proposals, Naiman
still sees a way that the antiwar rallying cries of the campaign trail might
translate into antiwar action for a new administration. Especially for Obama,
there will be pressure to follow up on those promises of "change."
"Expectations create their own momentum," Naiman said. "Obama
is running as an antiwar candidate, and his supporters are more antiwar than
Clinton's. If Obama becomes president, his base will expect him to get us out
of Iraq, whether he wants to or not."
The push for withdrawal from the Democratic base would also influence a Clinton
presidency, according to Naiman, though its rationale might be slightly different.
With Clinton's slew of promises to shift priorities to the domestic front -
for example, her emphasis on universal health care - the budget won't hold up
unless operations in Iraq are substantially reduced.
However, Nairn notes that neither candidate has committed to pulling out of
Iraq even if a US exit would result in the collapse of the American-supported
Iraqi government: a risky political move, but perhaps the only scenario for
complete withdrawal. "To really support ending the war, a candidate would
have to say, 'Yes, I'd be willing to see that administration fall,'" Nairn
said, noting that "long-shot" candidates Dennis Kucinich and Mike
Gravel have implicitly stated they would tolerate that possibility. "Without
that, there's not likely to be much difference in Iraq policy whether Clinton
or Obama wins - or whether a Democrat or Republican wins."
Maya Schenwar is an assistant editor and reporter for Truthout.
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