Hill refines her posish on war
New York Post - March 16, 2007
HILL REDRAWING HER BATTLE LINE By IAN BISHOP Post Correspondent
WASHINGTON - After recently vowing to quickly end the Iraq war if she
becomes president, Hillary Rodham Clinton is now stressing a plan to
keep some U.S. forces there indefinitely - a shift that analysts say
shows she’s feeling heat from both Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani.
Sen. Clinton’s new tough stance is an attempt to convince voters she
has the gravitas to be the first female commander in chief, political
pros say.
In a surprising move, Clinton has begun emphasizing her plan to keep
U.S. troops, mostly special forces, in Iraq to hunt down al Qaeda
remnants in Anbar province and protect Israel and other countries in
the region from Iran after pulling the bulk of U.S. combat forces out
of Baghdad.
Political strategists say Clinton’s harder-line posture - and
acknowledgment that Iraq is vital in winning the broader war on
terror and America’s security - is a two-pronged approach. She aims
to prove to primary voters that she has the seriousness and
intellectual depth to overshadow less experienced rivals Obama and
John Edwards, as well as the toughness to match up with GOP front-
runner Giuliani.
Some of her claims mirrored those of the Bush administration. She
told The New York Times, for instance, that a failed Iraqi state
could serve “as a petri dish for insurgents and al Qaeda” and spiral
into a wider conflict.
Clinton’s insistence that the way forward in Iraq is “complex. It is
dangerous. It is difficult,” is a subtle but unmistakable shot at the
more simplistic, easy-answer pullout plans offered by Obama and
Edwards, strategists say.
“She’s trying to make Obama and Edwards look childish, like they’re
not aware of the consequences,” said one Democratic presidential-
campaign veteran who is not aligned with a current contender. “It’s
her way of showing resolve and trying to show that she is the adult
in the field.”
Experts also say Clinton is further positioning herself to convince
voters she can go toe-to-toe with Giuliani when it comes to
determination in tracking down terrorists and protecting the United
States.
“She can’t win the general election unless she can demonstrate she
can be commander in chief . . . If she advocates complete withdrawal,
she wins the primary but loses the general,” pollster John McLaughlin
said.
“She’s saying: ‘I can be commander in chief. I can keep America safe
by keeping people in Iraq.’ She’s willing to lose some of her primary
lead to maintain a dead- even heat with Republicans in national
polling.”
Clinton’s surprising vow to keep U.S. forces in Iraq even after she’s
president is the latest twist in her carefully re-choreographed
stance on the war.
“I don’t know how many [U.S. troops] we’re talking about [keeping in
Iraq], but . . . if we’re getting good cooperation in al Anbar
province and we’ve got al Qaeda pinned down, we can’t walk away from
that,” Clinton said yesterday.
“When I’m president in January 2009, I’m going to have to start
ending the war. And that will mean moving our troops out in a safe
and orderly way with these remaining missions,” she told The Post.
She added that America would not “need a lot of troops to keep that
up. We’re talking mostly special forces. We’ve got to have some
openness to understanding what we need to do to protect ourselves.”
Clinton’s statement now that she will “start” ending the war is a
marked shift from her promise last month to Democratic National
Committee members that “if we in Congress don’t end this war before
January 2009, as president, I will.”
Strategists say her move also is an attempt to gain wiggle room if
she wins the White House.
“It’s aimed at not boxing her in if she wins,” another Democratic
operative said. “She’s finagling the bagel, which her husband did
amazingly well, and for which she, as a senator, gets skewered.”