By throwing his hat into the US presidential ring, Sen. Barack Obama adds to what has become one of the most diversified field of candidates ever to run for the highest office, not only in America but the world. No US president has ever been African-American as Obama is. No US president has ever been female as Hillary Clinton is. She too has announced her intention to campaign for the Democratic nomination. Though six other Democrats are also in the race, the campaign is shaping up as a one-two race between Hillary , who is the front-runner, and Obama, who is 14 points behind, according to one recent university poll. Despite, or perhaps because of, their uniqueness in US politics, one of them seems certain to secure the Democratic nomination.
John McCain, Newt Gingrich and Rudolph Giuliani are serious contenders for the Republicans. However, the Democrats are at present stealing more headlines, again because of the precedent that Hillary and Barack provide and also because the Democrats want an end to America’s presence in Iraq which, poll after poll makes clear, is a sentiment shared by millions of Americans whose numbers are increasing by the day.
Their sex and color aside, Hillary and Obama are making Iraq one of the top items on the agenda of their early speeches; Iraq could be the issue which ultimately decides who will sit in the Oval Office after Bush. Actually, it is Iraq which is forcing itself onto the top of the campaign agenda; voters in America and millions of people outside its borders all want to know what the next US head of state intends to do about Iraq. Hillary and Obama make no secret that one of the country’s first priorities should be ending the war in Iraq. He calls it a “foreign policy disaster” and she promises to end the war if she wins the presidency.
It is easy, of course, to say the US should exit Iraq, but that is not quite the answer Bush was looking for when he suggested his adversaries come up with an alternative to the present crisis. How, for example, will the US be able to leave, looking like a winner and not a loser? How can it ensure that Iraq will not fall apart completely after its departure? How can Washington guarantee that its enemies will not attempt to benefit from an Iraq free of US forces? The days ahead will allow the presidential candidates to explain their positions using more precise language.
The Democrats do want an end to the Iraq war, but not because they are necessarily angels. They want a conclusion in order to score political brownie points. Opposition to what is happening in Iraq is the antithesis of the Republican platform, from Bush downward, while support among the voting public for US forces to withdraw is at its highest since the war began almost four years ago. Iraq is what led to both houses of the US Congress tumbling from Republican hands and it is an Iraqi settlement, or at least the promise of one, which each Democrat hopes will put him or her in the presidential seat under two years from now.
