AS PRESIDENT BUSH headed towards Europe for a summit last night, a Senate debate on the prospects for a US pullout from Iraq, which has shown deep divisions within the Democratic Party, continued to rage. It will show that party members have at least three distinct positions. Although opinion polls show that US voters remain hostile to the war, the Republicans believe that the splits among their opponents can be exploited.
Senator Hillary Clinton was booed by Democratic activists for saying that setting a deadline for withdrawal of US troops was not a “smart strategy”. By failing to renounce her comments or apologise for supporting the war, she risks alienating the party’s liberal base and could yet damage her prospect of winning the presidential nomination in 2008.
The position of most Democratic Senators is based on an amendment tabled by Jack Reed and Carl Levin that calls for “phased withdrawal” without specifying when it should begin or be completed. But John Kerry, the Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2004, and Russ Feingold, a likely contender for 2008, have tabled their own amendment directing Mr Bush to withdraw troops by July 1 next year.
The party last week published a lengthy document in advance of the mid-term Congressional elections setting out its position on almost every subject, except Iraq.