Obama/Clinton Iraq plans = Dangerous?

[Jason T]

Both Obama and Clinton want to leave a huge presence in Iraq. They're just making their platform sound more liberal than it, since they're in a Democrat primary.

They want to leave to a "residual" force of 20,000-80,000 troops, keep the green zone, keep all American businesses there, build bases, and keep the majority of the 180,000+ American contractors there.

Now, I know the majority of Ron Paul supporters think the best idea is to leave Iraq completely, since we know it gives incentive for people to join up with Al-Qaeda.

However, if we are involved in Iraq, I think a reduced presence would make us worse off. Simply reducing the presence doesn't change the view of the war in Iraqi's eyes, and we won't have the man power to defend ourselves there.

Both Clinton and Obama have no plans to ask other nations to help stabilize the region, like some of the lower tier democrats had. I would absolutely love to see a full withdraw of American military and business from Iraq, but I'm not quite sure that this partial withdraw without a change in policy will be very good for the troop's safety. Any thoughts?

[AmericaFyeah92]

agree. Democrats are often even bigger interventionists than Neo-Cons

[haigh]

The policy must be America First, addressing the top priorities, both the American human costs and financial costs, buttressed by a policy position that any resulting increase in violence is the responsibility of Iraqi's not Americans.

[Naraku]

Agreed, that's why on Iraq I can have no trouble backing Paul. The Democratic plan will ultimately endanger American troops more than keeping the higher levels, then again it may not be a problem when they get in office.

However, I think if you're going to pull troops without insuring stability it's better to pull them all out. Also, Paul would bring a great deal more needing change to our foreign policy than others.

I'm not perfectly in line with him, but he's a lot closer to my views on foreign policy than any others really ever.