Political Quotes

“I speak in support of this bill because it would change our strategy in Iraq towards the successful outcome, while ensuring that America will be more secure. It does so by providing, most importantly, a date certain by which we will not be in Iraq, approximately 9 months from its enactment, that serves as the sole remaining leverage we have to change the structure of incentives in that country and in the region toward stability. Presently, the Iraqi ministries are personal fiefdoms where the leaders pursue their personal ambitions while we provide them political and military cover in what is now principally a civil war. Political reconciliation. How? When their very top Shia and Kurdish leaders recently told Senator Hagel and me that the re-Baathification law is only appeasement to the Sunnis. But our U.S. leaders in Iraq say it is critical to success and stabilization. A date certain finally forces the Iraqis to make the difficult political compromises they are presently avoiding; more importantly, it changes the incentives and therefore the behavior of Iran and Syria from being involved destructively in this war because we are bleeding towards working for stability. As our top political leader in Iraq said, Iran does not want a failed state if we depart.”