Home pagePress CenterIn the Media Anthony Cordesman, the CSIS Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, was quoted by U.S. News and World Report, "Clinton and Obama Can't Count on Iraq to Win the White House."
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Anthony Cordesman, the CSIS Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, was quoted by U.S. News and World Report, "Clinton and Obama Can't Count on Iraq to Win the White House."
It was not all that long ago when it looked as if Iraq was going to dominate the 2008 presidential campaign, a situation that seemed to make just about any Democratic nominee a shoo-in. In early 2007, President Bush was pouring more troops into Iraq even as dozens of corpses were turning up on Iraqi streets each morning. The U.S. death toll was mounting fast. And both Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama declared that the United States should not "baby-sit a civil war." [...]
Still, from here on out, the candidates will all be hostage to the news from Iraq. Violent street battles in Basra in late March, for example, sparked fears that a tenuous cease-fire with radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr could unravel, which might make Iraq more of a factor in the election. The death toll for U.S. soldiers also hit 4,000, although the death rate is down from last year. Barring a resurgence in violence, the political battle will largely be one of perception—of whether or not Iraqis are making real progress toward stability. "There is always the possibility of reversals," says Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "If that happens, the dynamics in the election could change quite rapidly." The key factor is where independent voters stand. Pew found that almost half of them now favor keeping U.S. troops in Iraq, versus a rapid withdrawal.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in these publications should be understood to be solely those of the authors.
