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Foreign Policy on the Campaign Trail

The Guest Who Didn't Come to Dinner

By Peter Ross Range

Don't get too excited, Europe. Even though President Bush will leave the White House in January 2009, his successor's foreign policy might look more like the current one than not.

When a new president walks into the White House on Jan. 20, 2009, Europe will let out a collective sigh of relief. At last, their bugaboo of the previous eight years, George W. Bush, will be gone. It doesn’t matter as much who walks in; it matters most that Bush walks out.

But before Europeans get too excited at the prospect of "anybody-but-Bush" sitting at the fulcrum of American power, they might want to take a look at the probable foreign policies of the three leading candidates for president: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain. While the three come from two political parties and have quite different backgrounds, Europeans might be dismayed to find that their foreign policy proposals are closer to those of the departing president than to those of some imagined savior on a white horse who would turn the United States into an extension of Europe.

To get to the most important difference first: Iraq. Yes, there is a very significant difference of opinion between McCain, the Republican, and Clinton or Obama, the Democrats. McCain famously believes America needs more troops in Iraq, not fewer. He believes the war there, however misbegotten its origins or mishandled its execution, can still be won. He believes leaving Iraq before the country is fully secured would be a murder-suicide: a murder of America’s willing allies, the Iraqis, and a suicide for an America that will then have a much more dangerous Middle East to contend with as order breaks down in Iraq and regional conflict explodes on its borders.

Clinton and Obama, just as famously, believe the war should be ended quickly, and that doing so would finally pressure the Iraqi political class to get its house in order and rein in sectarian violence. In a proposal to Congress last year, Obama wanted all US combat troops to be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008 -- but he was unable to get it passed into law. Clinton has a more cautious plan: She wants to begin withdrawing troops within 60 days of taking office. But she has also left herself some wiggle room for the maintenance of special forces for special tasks, and for training units.

In fact, when the reality of governing takes hold, even the Democrats might quickly look for reasons not to remove troops too fast. “They will have to explain how they plan to stabilize the arc of crisis that is the greater Middle East,” says Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a Democrat-leaning think tank.

For one thing, there are strong indications that things have, for the moment, gotten much better in Iraq following last year’s troop increase, known as “ the surge.” A Clinton or an Obama might find it politically risky to go against the recommendations of the most respected military man in America these days, General David Petraeus. The general's use of classic counterinsurgency tactics has been widely praised. He is expected, in an upcoming report, to recommend giving more time for the improved security situation to become permanent, and for the Iraqi political situation to catch up with it. After drawing down the roughly 30,000 troops of the surge, that would mean keeping the steady contingent of 130,000 troops in place -- the same number that were there before the surge.