Obama's plan, as laid out in his most recent war policy statement made on Wed. Mar. 19, by contrast, rejected Bush's linkage of troop drawdowns to "success" and insisted that political stability in Iraq will only come as the threat of troop withdrawal is pronounced. (Many military experts point to the success of the anti-war sentiments in the 2006 US elections as at least one key reason a number of former insurgent Iraqi groups chose to begin to work with the US military.) Thus, Obama argued for an immediate phased withdrawal to aim at completion with 16 months, an immediate shift in mission away form combat duty, and refocusing efforts on Al Qaeda in the region.
The vagueness of Clinton's plan, its rationale and conditionality, and her vote to authorize the war in the first place make it difficult to believe that she will move with urgency to bring the war to an end.
Obama's plan appears to have originated from the school of thought in the military articulated by the so-called Jones Commission last fall. Mandated by Congress and President Bush, the Jones Commission argued that the cause of instability in Iraq lay in the size of the US "footprint" in Iraq.
The commission urged a "changed role for the US military" and the rapid shift of autonomy and control over security concerns to Iraqi authorities. The commission pointed to the phased withdrawal of British troops from Iraq as a model for how the US could begin to end its involvement there. Without an end date, the commission noted, Iraqis come to depend on US forces and feel no real urgency for resolving the political strife in their country.
"How much longer are we going to ask our troops to bear the cost of this war? When are we going to stop mortgaging our children's futures for Washington's mistakes?," Obama asked.
Ending the battle in Iraq will allow us to take up the fight for a universal health care system, improved education for our children, real job growth, and the fight to track down the real perpetrators of the September 11th attacks, Obama concluded.
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