Hillary Stumbles Onto Truth; Hurts Own Campaign

Hillary Clinton - who formerly wanted to make sure that the President had all troops out of Iraq by the time she was sworn in as his successor - now wants to make sure that some US troops remain in Iraq after the war to protect 'vital security interests:'

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

In a half-hour interview on Tuesday in her Senate office, Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence — even if it descended into ethnic cleansing.

In outlining how she would handle Iraq as commander in chief, Mrs. Clinton articulated a more nuanced position than the one she has provided at her campaign events, where she has backed the goal of “bringing the troops home.”

She said in the interview that there were “remaining vital national security interests in Iraq” that would require a continuing deployment of American troops.

The United States’ security would be undermined if parts of Iraq turned into a failed state “that serves as a petri dish for insurgents and Al Qaeda,” she said. “It is right in the heart of the oil region,” she said. “It is directly in opposition to our interests, to the interests of regimes, to Israel’s interests.”

It is for these very reasons that supporters of continued military action in Iraq want to stay until the job is done. So Hillary - who wants an end to the effort to establish a stable Iraqi government with popular support, that is capable of policing itself and its borders - wants to make sure that if Iraq ends up without such a government, we still have troops there to protest US interests.

Here's a crazy idea: since you want US troops there anyway, why don't we continue the implementation of the new strategy, and try to make sure it works?

Of course, this will lead to a new round of attacks on Hillary from the Democratic base, which has not failed to notice that she seems unable to mount a coherent campaign that addresses the central foreign policy issue of our time.

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