"I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning" -- President William Jefferson Clinton in Iowa on November 27
The American public, very tired of the war and American occupation of Iraq, longs for a leader who will tell the truth about the quagmire in that country; and talk credibly about how to get out. In the Democratic presidential primaries, Sen. Barack Obama's trump card so far has been that, back in 2002, he opposed the Iraq war (in Illinois) and Sen. Hillary Clinton voted to grant Bush the authority to use military force against Iraq. To get to the heart of the matter, in what many Democrats consider the biggest issue of their adult lives, he was right and she was wrong.
Former President Bill Clinton has now set the stage for Obama to raise, or induce others to press, the fundamental question about Hillary's campaign for the presidency. His intervention in Iowa earlier this week served to accentuate her own ambivalent--or wishy-washy--approach to major issues. As the whole world knows, Obama and Mrs. Clinton are in a tight race to win the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3. Her husband made a remark in Iowa that can only be interpreted as an attempt to fuzz the historical record so as to make the Clintons appear more antiwar than they actually were at the time.
In regard to the WAR, her basic position on withdrawal of American troops is not very different from the evolving new Bush White House position: Begin gradual "redeployment" or withdrawal now, while leaving a large number of combat troops in Iraq beyond November 2008. Yet, in an attempt to soften the political impact of her own October 2002 vote--which is on the record--Bill Clinton is telling voters that he opposed the U.S. invasion from the outset, thereby glossing over the more nuanced views of the war he has expressed over time. (Patrick Healy, "Bill Clinton Flatly Asserts He Opposed War at Start," New York Times, November 28.)
Bill Clinton has said several times since the war began that he would not have attacked Iraq in the manner that President Bush did. As early as June 2004, he said, "I would not have done it until after Hans Blix finished the job," referring to the UN weapons inspections there before the war. Of course, this was before Sen. Clinton of New York was formally a presidential candidate. Nor was she running for the nomination against a Democrat who had opposed the invasion from the start -- now Sen. Obama of Illinois.
Did they privately differ on her Senate vote in 2002? Or did he basically concur with her vote?
Sen. Clinton has, at times, cited the experience her husband had dealing with the Iraqi government in the 1990s as one reason that she gave President Bush the benefit of the doubt when she voted for the the authority to go to war in 2002. Advisers to former President Clinton said this week, according to the Times, that he did oppose the war, but that it would have been inappropriate at the time for him, a former president, to oppose -- in a direct manner -- sitting President Bush's military decision.
However, past remarks made by the former president do leave open a question about how fervently he opposed the war at the outset and before it grew widely unpopular. In immediate hindsight, Clinton did not sound like a fierce critic: "I supported President Bush when he asked for authority to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," he said on May 18, 2003, during a commencement speech at Tougaloo College in Mississippi.
(After talking one way and then another during the Fall 1990 military buildup in the Persian Gulf, when extensive hearings were held by Sen. Sam Nunn and the Senate Armed Services Committee on what the U.S. response should be to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, then Gov. Clinton memorably said he would have backed the war if the Congressional vote had been close but that he agreed with the arguments against it. The vote in the Senate was close.)
Today, she is running for president, and he is running interference for her with the stakes getting higher a little more than a month before the Iowa caucuses.
Where does she leave off and he begin? More fundamentally, just WHO IS SHE--apart from her identification with his presidency and her term in the Senate? WHO ARE THEY? Two for the price of one equals what for the voters? This is not an easy bet for Democratic voters in the primaries where the war is the number one issue. It is almost as if the Clintons are listening to Dick Morris again on "triangulation." Do they have a moral compass when it comes to principled stands on the issues? It is a fair question.
Here is the Washington Post headline of November 29: "Bill Clinton's Claim of Opposing Iraq War From Outset Disputed." Glenn Kessler and Anne Kornblut wrote: "A former senior aide to then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice disputed Bill Clinton's statement this week that he 'opposed Iraq from the beginning,' saying that the former president was privately briefed by top White House officials about war planning in 2003 and that he told them he supported the invasion.
"Clinton's comments in Iowa on Tuesday went far beyond more nuanced remarks he made about the conflict in 2003. But the disclosure of his presence in briefings by Rice -- and his private expressions of support -- may add to the headaches that the former president has given his wife's campaign in recent weeks."
The former NSC aide added:
"the White House at the time had little concern about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's support for the war and 'they discussed inviting her to various White House events as a sort of reward for her support'."
The Post story continued:
"Although Bill Clinton is still viewed as a political asset, particularly in the hotly contested Democratic primaries, he has also repeatedly made remarks that have put him out of step with his wife's message and irritated Clinton campaign aides who have been forced to address them."
This week, Jay Carson, of Sen. Clinton's campaign, quickly sought to put the former president's comments on Iraq into context -- arguing that Clinton had always had concerns about attacking Baghdad. "This administration assured us that Saddam Hussein had [weapons of mass destruction], that the war was over 2,500 casualties ago and that the insurgency was in its last throes," he said. "Their claim that President Clinton privately offered his support for the war should be viewed with the same level of credibility." Carson also said: "As he said from the beginning and many times since, President Clinton disagreed with taking the country to war in Iraq without allowing the weapons inspectors to finish their jobs."
The campaign is straining to make clear that Clinton will remain his wife's chief, and best, surrogate:
"President Clinton is a huge asset to the campaign. Everywhere he goes, he draws large, supportive crowds," said Howard Wolfson, a senior Hillary Clinton adviser.
Sen. Obama should continue to stress to voters that his original anti-war stance still matters, and that it's the key to understanding what makes him and Sen. Clinton different now. As Peter Beinart has suggested in the Post, Obama should be flattered. On foreign policy, Clinton is not the same person she was five years ago. Much of what she says about the Middle East these days represents a tacit acknowledgment that she was wrong and he was right.