Hillary, straw in the wind of an Iraq deal

A good indicator of the way the wind is blowing in Washington is often the position of Senator Hillary Clinton. A human weather-vane, Clinton has been a long-time supporter of the Iraq war, has visited Iraq, kept close contact with the military, served on the relevant Senate committees, and made hawkish noises that helped her with her rural New York state voters, but slowly alienated her anti-war liberal base.

Now, as with the rest of Washington, she’s shifting a little with the breeze. Yes, she recently voted against both Senate resolutions demanding immediate withdrawal or a fixed timetable for withdrawal. But last week she sent out an e-mail to constituents, finessing things. “We are at a critical point with the December 15 elections that should, if successful, allow us to start bringing home our troops in the coming year,” she wrote.

She still opposes a rigid timetable. But she has made it clear that the Iraqi elections next week will be a critical milestone in the American effort. After that the Iraqis had better step up or the US will start stepping down.

How different is this from the position of the president? On the face of it George W Bush is still insistent on fighting until “victory”, but Washington’s little secret is that the difference between Clinton and Bush is not much more than rhetorical. The president’s “major” speech on Iraq last week was at least an attempt to persuade an increasingly disenchanted public that this consensus-strategy has a decent chance of success.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1902699,00.html