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Edwards is already attacking Clinton on residual forces, as we have seen on multiple occasions over the last month, and now Obama is wading into the water, too:
Mr. Obama has also talked about keeping a limited force in Iraq after withdrawing American combat units at the rate of one or two per month. But Mr. Obama insisted in the interview that the mission of his residual force would be more limited than that posited by Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Obama said, for example, that the part of the residual force assigned to counterterrorism might be based outside Iraq. He also emphasized that the residual force would not have the mission of deterring Iranian involvement in Iraq. He said he would commit to training Iraqi security forces only if the Iraqi government engaged in political reconciliation and did not employ the Iraqi Army and police for sectarian purposes. In any event, he said, American trainers would not be attached with Iraqi units that go in harm's way.
"The trainers are going to have to be provided with missions that don't put them in vulnerable situations," he said. "Part of what my goal is is that the trainers are not constantly embedded in combat operations."(…)
Mr. Obama acknowledged in the interview that there were "legitimate questions" as to how his concept of a residual force might work, and said he would adjust it if necessary after discussions with senior military leaders.
"As commander in chief, I'm not going to leave trainers unprotected. In our counterterrorism efforts, I'm not going to have a situation where our efforts can't be successful," he said. "If the commanders tell me that they need X, Y and Z, in order to accomplish the very narrow mission that I've laid out, then I will take that into consideration."
While this is far from perfect, the issue of residual forces is starting to really hit the bloodstream of this campaign. If both Obama and Edwards are now willing to try and differentiate themselves from Clinton on this front, it shows real promise for future discussion and debate in the campaign.
Now, do I wish this had come much earlier in the campaign? Oh yes. Is Obama's differentiation still overly academic and wonkish for it to have a significant impact on the campaign? Probably. Does Obama not go far enough into the specific problems associated with residual force missions, including that training Iraqi forces has often amounted to arming sectarian violence, and that the "counter-terrorism" operation in Iraq not only fuel terrorist recruitment? Yes and yes. It is too late to change the past now, but I still think it is possible for a clear message on residual forces, coming from multiple candidates, on what residual force missions they won't conduct and why they won't conduct them, can potentially change the debate over Iraq in this campaign. Only when it comes from multiple sources will the argument over what residual forces are and why they shouldn't be there, can this discussion be changed and "strategic drift" on Iraq be stopped. A combined front of Richardson, Edwards, Obama, Dodd and Kucinich might be forming on this issue, despite their differences on the matter.
A step in the right direction for Obama. More will be needed to change the nature of the campaign, of course.
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