Hillary's End The War Plan

Senator Hillary Clinton adroitly reinforced her foreign policy credentials on Monday with a speech at George Washington University in which she outlined how she would end the Iraq war and withdraw US troops. Her address provided the most comprehensive, reality-based and practical-minded set of steps that so far anybody in the presidential race has yet given for a serious exit strategy from Iraq. On taking over the presidency in January 2009, she says she will instruct the Joint Chiefs of Staff to draw up a plan for withdrawal to start within sixty days of her inauguration; she will next convene a regional stabilization group composed of states bordering Iraq, major US allies and other global powers to find an agreement on how to support a durable Iraqi state -- a long overdue proposal, first put forward by another Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, in the 2004 race; and she will ask the most important multilateral organization on the planet, the United Nations, for its involvement as a "neutral, honest broker" to forge political reconciliation in Iraq. These, along with a number of other steps, are specific, detailed and intelligent approaches to the end-game in Iraq and strengthen her claim to be the most prepared among the candidates for settling this tragic war.