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Hillary: Some troops out in 60 days

By Christina Bellantoni
October 16, 2007

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton greeted attendees of yesterday's annual luncheon in New York of the Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee, a group that promotes female candidates for office.

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Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will develop a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq within 60 days of becoming president, but "will order specialized units" to stay behind to fight terrorists there and elsewhere in the region, she wrote in a detailed Foreign Affairs magazine essay.

The New York Democrat also stressed that all options would be on the table with respect to Iran policy, though she would use diplomacy as her first weapon.

Her campaign views the nearly 6,000-word piece as a blueprint for how she would approach foreign policy as president. The essay, titled "Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century," went online at ForeignAffairs.org yesterday and is part of the magazine's presidential series.

"Iran must conform to its nonproliferation obligations and must not be permitted to build or acquire nuclear weapons. If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table," she wrote.

"On the other hand, if Iran is in fact willing to end its nuclear weapons program, renounce sponsorship of terrorism, support Middle East peace, and play a constructive role in stabilizing Iraq, the United States should be prepared to offer Iran a carefully calibrated package of incentives," she wrote. "This will let the Iranian people know that our quarrel is not with them, but with their government and show the world that the United States is prepared to pursue every diplomatic option."

Lee Feinstein, national-security director for the Clinton campaign, expanded on Mrs. Clinton's Iran policy in a conference call with reporters yesterday.

"A commander in chief does not take options off the table," he said, adding that Mrs. Clinton has made clear her preference is to "pursue intensive diplomacy and economic pressure as the best way to avert a nuclear program in Iran and as the best way to avert a war."

Iran has been a hot topic in recent weeks on the campaign trail, with Mrs. Clinton's rivals, especially former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, questioning her vote on a resolution which deemed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

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