Ian, you present an interesting thesis here.

In that earlier thread, I posted what I thought were some of the distinctions that have arisen, and could arise, between the three major candidates for the nomination.  I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on all of this...let me re-post most of it here:  

It is my expectation that Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Edwards will give Democratic voters some choices with respect to Iraq.  In theory, the candidate who demonstrates the best plan for getting us out of Iraq, as soon as possible, will receive the Democratic nomination.  

It is early yet...but do we have some distinctions to point to so far?  Further, what distinctions should we be looking for in the future?

Well for starters, here is a distinction that already appears to be fixed in stone:  

(1) Was the vote to authorize the war in Iraq a mistake?  Barack Obama says-yes.  John Edwards says-yes.  Hillary Clinton says-no.  (FYI approximately 80% of Democratic voters polled recently said...drum roll please...yes.)

Here are some additional distinctions that may arise:

(2) Do you believe we should make it clear to the world that we will have NO permanent bases in Iraq?  Edwards has said yes. Obama has said yes.  Hillary Clinton has said .......?

(3) When American troops are redeployed, will they remain in Iraq to conduct six missions, or three?  Hillary has already described the need to conduct six different missions.  Obama, in synch with the Senate bill, has mentioned only three missions.  Edwards has also mentioned only three missions. Needless to say, the more missions needed, the more soldiers that will be required.  So far, it appears that Hillary Clinton's six missions will require at least 75,000 troops to occupy Iraq during her presidency.

(4) When American troops are redeployed, will you redeploy them OUT of Iraq, into neighboring Kuwait, or keep them IN Iraq?  Hillary Clinton has said she will definitely keep them IN Iraq, and keep them there indefinitely in order to accomplish her six missions.  Edwards has suggested (but not committed explicitly to) redeploying to Kuwait.  Obama is not too clear on this.  (For those Democratic voters who believe that our continued occupation of Iraq will forever drive more violence in Iraq, Hillary's position here will be VERY significant.  They will not support a candidate who promises indefinite occupation of Iraq with a large number of troops.  Are they all going to vote for Kucinich?)  

(5) How will you handle Al Qaeda having terrorists operating in Baghdad?  Hillary Clinton has stated that US forces will do nothing to stop an Al Qaeda presence in Baghdad, but instead, rely exclusively upon Iraqi forces, including the Mahdi army.  I do not believe Edwards or Obama have said anything on this question.

(6) How will you handle Al Qaeda infiltration into Al Anbar province? Hillary Clinton has stated that US forces occupying Iraq during her presidency, including possibly occupying Al Anbar province itself, will be fighting in Al Anbar province indefinitely.  I do not believe Edwards or Obama have said anything on this.

(7) If Shiites and Sunnis continue killing each other in Iraq during your presidency, as they are doing right now in huge numbers, will American forces intervene to stop any of this killing?  All three have said no: it is solely the responsibility of Iraqis to stop this.  (Good luck Iraqis.)

Politically, my sense is that Hillary Clinton is, and will continue to be, the Democratic candidate MOST committed to continuing the occupation of Iraq with substantial numbers of American troops.  Politically, on a scale of one to ten, with a ten being a substantial, permanent occupation of Iraq, McCain would be a 10, Clinton would be an 8, Obama a 6, and Edwards perhaps a 5.  And Democrat's should be clear about this:  Hillary Clinton apparently feels a "political need" to be seen as more hawkish than Obama and Edwards on Iraq.  That is her game plan.    

So yes, the Democratic voters should have some choices on Iraq with the big three contenders.  Do you want the most hawkish candidate of the three, and an indefinite occupation of Iraq?  Or, do you think it is time to put the occupation of Iraq fully behind us, as soon as possible, including actually leaving the country (OMG!), and concentrate on other national and international priorities?   It should be interesting.  

go hand in hand.  Staying in Iraq, anti flag burning amendments, and Mrs. NAFTA/WTO has even duped unemployed Democrats into thinking she is their candidate, which is a major hoot for the Queen of the DLC.  Add in I love to preach and have nothing to say Obama, and our two front runners become a total waste of an opportunity for real reform.  And please don't tell me the "why can't we all get along" Obama is reform.  He isn't.  Howard Dean was reform.  Obama should have been a preacher and not a politician.  This time, I think I'll move to Canada before the election.

AIPAC rules!  So to speak...

Perhaps if we want to do something about Al Qaeda, maybe we should look at the country the money (and the 9/11 hijackers) all come from:  Saudi Arabia.  

Staying in Iraq hasn't done a damned thing to stop the growth of Al Qaeda.  Al Qaeda is not an organized army and it's completely pointless to try to fight a conventional war against it.

The US is engaged in counter-insurgency in Iraq, not fighting terrorism.  That point needs to be driven home time after time.  

And by all means, every candidate needs to answer the questions about permanent bases.

This has been swept under the rug from 2003 on.  The plan, all along, has been to leave 40-50,000 American troops in Iraq in permanent bases that are now in place. These bases have, all along, been intended to replace Saudi bases, which creates a pretext for anti-royalty elements to foment opposition to the Saudi regime.

Part of this plan has been to deny Iraq's armed forces key elements necessary for national defense, like armor, air and logistical support.  A plan to fully withdraw requires resolution of this deficit.  An actual full withdrawal would allow Iran or Turkey to invade at will, and would give the Saudi air force free rein.  Supplying the Iraqis with armor and air power would run the risk of an Iran/Iraq shiite alliance, which the Saudis would find quite disconcerting.  This, of course, would lead to a continued US presence in Saudi Arabia, the elimination of which was a key goal of the neo-nuts.

It's hard to overestimate the magnitude of this catastrophe.

So now you've got candidates who really can't spell out what they would do, because any nuanced statement will be used as soundbite fodder.  You've got media who have never asked these question, so there is no context for any kind of nuance.  Long story short, the truth is that there will not be a complete withdrawal unless an anti-US government comes to power and expels the US. Unlike a complete withdrawal in vietnam (note the "expel" point above), there will be no government left behind and no effective armed force to defend the country.  So a complete withdrawal is not really possible in less than a time period like three or four years and will require solving some very difficult problems that have been made worse by this administration.

What voters, especially Democratic voters,  want is a complete withdrawal. This creates severe difficulties for Democratic candidates.

Sorry for the long contextual intro:

With that:

(1) Was the vote to authorize the war in Iraq a mistake?  Barack Obama says-yes.  John Edwards says-yes.  Hillary Clinton says-no.

Unquestionably. It does done immense damage to US foreign policy and to US security, and may still cause enormously more damage in the Middle East--results that were predictable at the time.  It was also politically stupid, especially for Hillary, who wasn't running in 04.  If it had been a huge success, the Republicans would have been a lock in 08.  Huge failure, the vote's gonna hang around your neck.

(2) Do you believe we should make it clear to the world that we will have NO permanent bases in Iraq?  Edwards has said yes. Obama has said yes.  Hillary Clinton has said .......?

This would be a lie.  That's where the problem lies.  Unless Obama and Edwards can outline how they plan to accomplish this--get out leaving substantially fewer than 40,000 troops indefinitely, then it's hard to take these claims seriously

(3) When American troops are redeployed, will they remain in Iraq to conduct six missions, or three?

Either the US will stay until there is a government that can be trusted to deploy a full-fledged defense posture, or the US will be expelled.  Regardless of who is President.  This is a very difficult issue to confront in the current political environment.

(4) When American troops are redeployed, will you redeploy them OUT of Iraq, into neighboring Kuwait, or keep them IN Iraq?  

Air support could reside in Kuwait.  But armor and logistics are necessarily in country.

(5) How will you handle Al Qaeda having terrorists operating in Baghdad?

It is incredibly stupid to keep feeding the myth of al qaeda.  There is no organized worldwide terrorist organization being run by bin Laden out of the caves of Afghanistan or Pakistan.  Al qaeda is a brand, not a movement. Everytime anyone talks about al qaeda in Iraq, they are promoting the brand. Any time a DEMOCRAT talks about "terrorism" or "al qaeda" in Iraq, they are feeding a false meme that is bad for democrats and bad for the country--the global war on terror.  The only context in which "al qaeda" should pass dem lips is to talk about Bush's failure to terminate al qaeda completely, when they were down to 100 people in Tora Bora caves, (see The Looming Tower so that they could pursue an imperial chimera in Iraq.

(6) How will you handle Al Qaeda infiltration into Al Anbar province?

This should always be characterized as a Sunni infiltration.  That's both more accurate and starves the "terrorism" meme, which is doing immense damage to the US and to democrats.  How you handle it? That's clearly an internal Iraqi security problem for the president elected in 08.

(7) If Shiites and Sunnis continue killing each other in Iraq during your presidency, as they are doing right now in huge numbers, will American forces intervene to stop any of this killing?  

See (6).

IMO, perhaps Clinton is accurately representing her view, which is not a surprising one for someone who spent 8 years in the White House.  Being able to wield military power may well lead to a greater belief in its effectiveness.  Or perhaps she is setting herself up for the general, betting that she can bleed some antiwar votes in the primary if it leaves her well-positioned in the center for the general.

There's no question that she is positioning herself as the hawk in the race, and that Obama and Edwards are not willing to alienate the anti-war majority.  

Hillary doesnt see her war vote as a mistake because she wanted this war.  To her, going to war wasnt a mistake, bush's "handling" of the war is the mistake.  There's just no way I'm voting for this war-mongering panderer.  If she's the candidate, I'm voting for Nader.

When the US leaves there will be a general settling of accounts.

Euphemism. Of. The. Year.

When that's done there'll either be someone in charge of Iraq; there'll be a de-facto partition, or there'll be a Lebanonization.

This strikes me as too rosy. One hopes that a Bismarck-type emerges. Seems to me that we could easily be looking at Afghanistan: Part II.

And I, for one, am open to an answer.

If you can fight Terrorists that live within a country from outside that country, then why did we invade afghanistan??  Seriously.  

It's a simple question.  My guess is it will be ignored.

Did you support invasion of Afghanistan????!!!!!  Why?  We can capture terrorists in Afghanistan from 400 miles away in Qatar!!!!

ONLY AFGHANIS CAN FIGHT AL QAIDA IN AFGHANISTAN!!!

ONLY THEY HAVE THE NETWORK!!

Right?  Right?

If you want to trust the Iraqis to do the job, that's an opinion that I think the other candidates, the brave candidates, who can speak so clearly about getting every last troop out of Iraq should be expressing on the campaign trail!

We've heard what Clinton thinks.

Lets hear from Edwards and Obama.

in matt stoller's diary, that you confuse the insurgency with terrorism.

that is a fundamental problem with your analysis.

While al qaida may exploit the insurgency to hide out and recruit with no fear of capture and every hope to prosper, it makes sense for anyone who wants to address a post-withdrawal iraq to make a distinction between those people who are motivated to wage a sectarian war that would remain contained within the iraq region and those who are motivated to commits acts of terrorism on other nations.

if it's literally too hard for the leftist blogosphere to make such distinctions, if it's literally too hard for people to understand that american troops can and will disengage ENTIRELY from the civil war/sectarian violence (which is the plan of EVERY democratic party candidate) and still maintain a localized strategy with respect to terrorists (which is Clinton's plan, who knows about Obama or Edwards at this point!), then maybe the leftist blogosphere actually should remain marginal.

Slowing retreating from the mistake in Iraq may not only be the best option, it is the one that the bi-partisan Hamilton/Baker commission agreed was the best option.

But so much political discourse seems trapped in the clutches of logical fallacy that we never get around to addressing problems in a logical and reasonable fashion. The fallacies trip up the Right, and now much of the Democratic Party is caught in the clutches. Instead of discussing the real benefits that may accrue from ending an occupation, such as a drop in support for terrorist activities, we hold discussions on "anti-war" versus "pro-war" Liberals.  Potentially rational policy is mis-characterized as  "cut and run". Policies that have increased the problem of terrorism by 700% are entrenched with defenses that essentially consist of accusing those who question them of not supporting the troops, or hating America.

There is no real thought and discussion on the issues. We are trapped in several false delimas. One cannot be for one war and against another. One can only be for or against war period.

There are errors of thinking here and at Matt Stoller's quoted post.

First, the thrust of this MyDD piece is that Al-Qaeda in Iraq was H. Clinton's major point, when the cited quote at the link itself clearly shows she mentioned Al-Qaeda only as a peripheral and minor part of the overall problem for Iraq.

Second, Matt et al fail to perceive there is a difference between being "sorry" and "apologizing".  Victims of a con-man are very sorry for what happened but don't have to apologize for being victims, victims of date rape are sorry they went out with a perp, but hopefully know not to blame themselves and "apologize" on a theory that agreeing to be go with someone is acquiesence to anything goes.

Thoughtful people must know that H. Clinton is very sorry she voted for that resolution. And her very clear speech the day prior to the vote (on 10-10-02) is the best available evidence to that, and also a terrific reference as to what Senators intended and were promised. The Senate was deceived. And GWB is the con-man who lied to Senators and abused the process.

To see why the Clintons are cautious in words, just remember how the far right (and just last week, "liberal" Jane Hamsher's "Bubba/Sister Souljah" piece) distort words and meanings to make political points.

those that disagree with you is not going to advance your arguments much. Especially if you are talking about other Democrats or Dem-voters.

The point is well taken that all leading Democratic candidates have some plan to keep some troop in Iraq or the area.  Leaving will take time and effort.  Bush is making zero effort to get out and is not laying the groundwork in order to leave.  One can argue that Bush Iraq policy is designed to make it difficult for his successor to leave.  

The Democratic president will first have to undo the Bush obstacles and lay the groundwork to leave before the withdrawal can actually take place.  Withdrawal is a complex operation that requires advanced planning.  All this will take time regardless of how fast the Dem president wants to leave.  Any withdrawal will have to be based on contingencies on the ground.  It is impossible to make a detailed plan 22 months out from when it will be implemented.  Any plan will have to start with events on the ground in January of 2008.

A better approach to nitpicking the candidate statements would be to start asking them about process.  What process would they use to start getting the US disentangled from Iraq?  What benchmarks would be important?  I would rather vote for a candidate with a plan for withdrawing troops by 2010 and being able to deliver than a candidate bolivating about having all the troops out by March 2009 and not delivering.

By the repub logic, let's invade Pakistan and every single Muslim country where Al Q has a presence. DIdn't Al Q set up some cells in European countries like Germany? Let us invade Germany. What about England? They seem to churn out terrorists.

Quite simply, it is not worth the price to try to get rid of AlQ in Iraq. The more we stay, the easier it is for them to recruit. Now is that alone a good reason to leave? Not really. But the price is not worth it.  

1. The withdrawl can begin shortly after the new president takes office.

2. Their is no logistical reason  it cannot be down in 18 months.

3. We started training the IRAQ army in June 2003. They need to take responsibility and ultimately their government will stand and fail by their efforts not the US.

4, hILLARY'S PLAN REALLY CALLS FOR PERMANENT BASES AND A CONTINUAL OCCUPATION FOR MANY YEARS.

5. Her mission as outlined in the ny times article would require close to 75,000 troops according to the pentagon controller.(who she confides in for her strategy0 tHE PENTAGON LOOKED AT THIS OPTION AND CAME UP WITH THESE ESTIMATES)

Finally as some one who spent time in Vietnam during the war, it is our best interests to withdraw all forces.In the past the so called experts predicted a disaster if we withdrew from Vietnam. It didnot happen

Steuwise has bought into the neocon argument of using mlitary force to further foreign policy objectives. Their are many false premises in this argument.

I hope the debates among all of the candidates go into depth about their policy for dis-engagement from Iraq fully and their view on permanent bases. I BELIEVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL NOT SUPPORT PERMANENT BASES IN IRAQ

Her use of al-Qa'eda to justify keeping troops in Iraq is nothing more than a cynical play on the American public's paranoia about al-Qa'eda, not a sincere strategy to defeat al-Qa'eda

Let's assume you are entirely correct. HRC's position is a cynical ploy, not a sincere strategy.

If so, then, it seems logical that she would not purposely implement a strategy once elected which she believes will fail.

Perhaps her position here is analogous to Bill Clinton's, in '92, when he campaigned in favor of an economic stimulus package.  Perhaps this was an entirely cynical ploy for votes (Bush was considered out of touch with people hurt by the sluggish economy, while Clinton was considered empathetic.) If I recall correctly, once elected, he asserted that the new deficit numbers demanded that he scrap the stimulus plan, in favor of focusing on deficit reduction.  

As we draw down a significant number of forces in Iraq we will have a better chance to understand what the situation will be post-US presence. The continued presence of Al Qadea in Anbar warrants a US military presence, absent clear and convincing evidence that either Sunni Tribes or the National Government will prevent them from operating there. Our desire to withdrawal US forces from Iraq must not be done to the determent of US security; our withdrawal must be responsbile.

I do not support HRC, but I do give her credit for realizing that "packing our shit up and going home" without any second thoughts about what we are leaving behind, would be a monumental national security blunder, on par with the decision to invade Iraq in the first place.

The United States still maintains tens of thousands of troops in the DMZ on the Korean peninsula.  Yet, we don't still talk about an ongoing war in Korea.  The point is that it is possible, and in my opinion advisable, for the United States to maintain a presence in potential hot spots.  There is a big difference between bases, even permanent ones, and continuing open warfare/street patrols/air cover.

Missing from this entire debate is drawing a distinction between:

a)    "ending the war"

b)    "occupation," and

c)    "maintaining a presence"

I don't understand how so many intelligent progressives who have been so articulate about the Iraq war continue to conflate these points.  Let's have an open debate about all of them, but let's understand they are distinct and the fact that Sen. Clinton supports one does not mean she supports all.

For years now, Democrats should have been saying to the voters:  The U.S. can either occupy Iraq OR it can attempt to effectively combat international terrorism -- but it can't do both.  Mr. Bush has made his choice, and it's been a disaster.  We need to get out of Iraq so we can begin to combat the terrorists.

In fact, however, Bush and his cronies, almost all Republicans, and many Democrats, including Senator Clinton, are adhering to Mort Sahl's old line: "It's a dirty little war, but it's the only one we've got."