Pushing the Iraq Debate Left

I didn't see the Presidential debate last night, but apparently the residual forces issue took center stage, with Richardson and Dodd committed to ending the war by taking all troops out, and Clinton and Obama and Biden opposed. John Edwards, who was unfairly lumped in with the status quo, residual force crowd despite being fairly clear on this for some time, gave specifics:

RUSSERT: Senator Edwards, will you commit that at the end of your first term, in 2013, all U.S. troops will be out of Iraq?

EDWARDS: I cannot make that commitment. But I -- well, I can tell you what i would do as president. When I'm sworn into office, come January of 2009, if there are, in fact, as General Petraeus suggests, 100,000 American troops on the ground in Iraq, I will immediately draw down 40,000 to 50,000 troops; and over the course of the next several months, continue to bring our combat out of Iraq until all of our combat are, in fact, out of Iraq.

I think the problem is -- and it's what you just heard discussed -- is we will maintain an embassy in Baghdad. That embassy has to be protected. We will probably have humanitarian workers in Iraq. Those humanitarian workers have to be protected.

I think somewhere in the neighborhood of a brigade of troops will be necessary to accomplish that, 3,500 to 5,000 troops.

Chris Bowers considers this a step forward, but it's pretty much what Edwards has been saying for quite a while now. I will say that Bowers' insistence on this issue, along with the recent Bill Richardson ad featuring bloggers, has done what it set out to do - bring the debate on residual forces out into the open. It's pushed Dodd fully into the no residual forces camp, and allowed Edwards to honestly put a number on what we will see in Iraq during his first term. Better to have this debate out in the open so the American people know what they're getting with a Democratic President. And I think this helps Edwards a lot (he apparently had a very good showing last night).