Aug. 11--Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush will outline his strategy for fighting Islamic State on Tuesday, laying out a case for greater emphasis on military power and saying Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton bears part of the blame for the radical group's rise in the Middle East.
ISIS grew because of a hasty troop withdrawal from Iraq and overall American abandonment of the region as a result of the foreign policies of President Obama and Clinton, his then-secretary of State, according to excerpts of Bush's speech released by his campaign.
"That premature withdrawal was the fatal error, creating the void that ISIS moved in to fill -- and that Iran has exploited to the full as well," Bush is expected to say during an appearance at the Reagan presidential library near Simi Valley.
"And where was Secretary of State Clinton in all of this?" he will ask.
"In all her record-setting travels, she stopped by Iraq exactly once," he will say. "Who can seriously argue that America and our friends are safer today than in 2009, when the president and Secretary Clinton -- the storied 'team of rivals' -- took office? So eager to be the history-makers, they failed to be the peacemakers."
Bush's advocacy of a greater U.S. military role in the fight against ISIS quickly drew criticism from Clinton's presidential campaign, which accused Bush of trying to "rewrite history" in his effort to blame the rise of ISIS on the Obama administration.
"It's curious that Gov. Bush is choosing Iraq as the place he wants to engage the foreign policy debate," Jake Sullivan, the campaign's senior policy advisor, told reporters on a conference call. Republicans "cannot be allowed to escape responsibility" for the problems caused by former President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, he said.
Bush's call for an aggressive American foreign policy poses a danger for the Republican. It's an argument that is popular among GOP primary voters, but viewed with more skepticism by general-election voters.
He faces the added complication of his last name. He has sought to distinguish his views from those of his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and his brother, former President George W. Bush. But his foreign policy advisors include many who counseled his father and his brother during their presidencies.
In June, Jeb Bush ventured on a five-day European tour, where he called for the restoration of America's leadership in world affairs, and argued that the Obama administration's approach has emboldened enemies and weakened allies. It's a theme Bush will highlight during his speech.
"The threat of global jihad, and of the Islamic State in particular, requires all the strength, unity, and confidence that only American leadership can provide," Bush will say Tuesday night.
Bush will focus on the war's end -- a successful troop surge followed by withdrawal -- which occurred under Obama, rather than on the war's beginning.
"So why was the success of the surge followed by a withdrawal from Iraq, leaving not even the residual force that commanders and the joint chiefs knew was necessary? ... Like the president himself, [Clinton] had opposed the surge...then joined in claiming credit for its success ... then stood by as that hard-won victory by American and allied forces was thrown away," Bush will say.
While Jeb Bush suggested that ISIS came into being because of Obama's decision to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq, the Democrats trace the group's origins back further, to its roots in the Sunni insurgency against the U.S. in the years after the invasion.
ISIS "emerged in no small part as a result of President Bush's failed strategy," said Sullivan, who served as a top aide to Clinton when she was secretary of State. He pointed to the Bush administration's decision in the early days of the U.S. occupation to disband the Iraqi army, which left many military personnel, mostly Sunnis, unemployed, embittered and armed.
Bush's jibe that Clinton had only traveled to Iraq once during her tenure at the State Department poses a more difficult problem for the former secretary of State's campaign. During Obama's first term, it was Vice President Joe Biden, not Clinton, who played the lead role in executing U.S. policy toward Iraq.
"The key issue is not how many times the plane touches down at the airport," Sullivan said, it's "how effective" an official is. Clinton, he said, had played a key role in the transition of Iraq from U.S. occupation to civilian rule.
The Democrats also sought to bait Bush into making a more explicit statement about where his policy might lead.
"What exactly does Jeb Bush propose?" Sullivan asked. Although Bush sharply denounced Obama's policies, "he appears to propose doing much the same thing" as what the administration is trying -- using U.S. air power to support Iraqi and Syrian allies.
If what Bush really wants is "more American combat boots on the ground," Sullivan said, "he should say so."
Clinton, he said, believes that "we don't have to get to the point where American combat boots on the ground are part of the equation."
Some of Bush's rivals for the GOP nomination, most notably Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have openly called for sending U.S. ground troops back to Iraq. Bush, however, has avoided taking a firm position on that.
Polls show that a significant majority of Republican voters support the idea of U.S. troops returning to the Mideast. But the concept is very unpopular among Democrats.
In a poll last month, for example, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that self-identified Republicans by a 2-1 margin supported sending "U.S. ground troops to fight" against ISIS. Democrats by 2-1 opposed the idea. Independents were closely divided.
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