Hillary Declines To Commit To Withdrawal

By Cernig

Via Raw Story:

The leading Democratic contender for the presidency was asked whether she'd pull out all troops from Iraq in her first term.

She declined.

"You know, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges, because I don't know what I'm going to inherit," Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) told ABC's George Stephanopoulos, according to the New York Times. "I don't know and neither do any of us know what will be the situation in the region. How much more aggressive will Iran have become? What will be happening in the Middle East?

"How much more of an influence will the chaos in Iraq have in terms of what's going on in the greater region?" she continued. "Will we have pushed Al Qaeda in Iraq out of their stronghold with our new partnership with some of the tribal sheikhs or will they have regrouped and retrenched? I don't know and I think it's not appropriate to be speculating."

Of course it's appropriate to be speculating, you weasel-worded harridan! Bush is speculating, the U.S. top officials in Iraq are in front of Congess speculating, every foreign policy thinker on the planet is speculating!

Look, either Hillary believes that the foreign policy debacle which the Iraq occupation has created will get worse if the U.S. stays or she doesn't. Either she thinks the continued U.S. presense incites increased violence and division or she doesn't. Either she believes a U.S. withdrawal will heat the Iraqi civil wars or she doesn't. Either she thinks Iraq is a frontline in a cold war against Iran or she doesn't.

She's already well informed enough - or should be - to venture an opinion on the biggest foreign policy question of the coming election and if she isn't then she shouldn't be running. Sitting on the fence trying to please all the people all the time won't cut it for anyone because people will see a prevaricator, not a president.