Using Our Leverage: The Troops

Comparing Levin's OP/ED today to JK's floor speech in June...

Using Our Leverage: The Troops
October 10th, 2005

Senator Carl Levin writes in an OP/ED today in the Washington Post that “We must use that leverage — the possibility of an American withdrawal — to achieve the broad-based political settlement that is essential for defeating the insurgency.”

I believe that if the Iraqis fail to reach a political solution by the end of the year we must consider a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces. This does not mean setting a date now for departure. It simply means conveying clearly and forcefully to Iraqis that the presence of our forces is not indefinite and that our staying there requires them to come together politically, since Iraqi unity offers the only hope of defeating the insurgency.

When I read Senator Levin’s OP/ED late last night, it dawned on me that I had heard a similar suggestion in the past… from John Kerry on June 28, 2005, in a speech on the Senate floor:

MORE & LINKS - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=801

speech. Maybe there may end up being a Democratic position before 2006.

Heh...I doubt many in GD even know of Kerry's June speech on Iraq....or remember it.

your posts on the Gore/kerry thread were good.

Haven't checked back on it though.