Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Politico:

In a speech Monday in Iowa, John Edwards plans to ridicule President George W. Bush’s preemptive doctrine, a rationale for the Iraq war that the president articulated in 2002 as the need to “confront the worst threats before they emerge.”

“Think about it - you don’t prevent wars by starting them,” Edwards says in his prepared remarks. “It would be ridiculous if it weren’t so dangerous.”

The former U.S. senator from North Carolina also makes his most personal attack ever on Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), saying: “Senator Clinton is voting like a hawk in Washington, while talking like a dove in Iowa and New Hampshire. One of her advisors told the New York Times that was because she was shifting from primary mode to general election mode. Well, we only need one mode from our president – tell-the-truth mode all the time.”

Edwards, whose dreams for winning the Democratic presidential nomination will stand or fall in the Hawkeye State, plans to vow that he would “end the ‘preventive war’ doctrine.”

“After Sept. 11, instead of focusing on the terrorist threat, George Bush started promoting a radical new neoconservative doctrine he called, quote, preventive war, - which would soon become part of his argument for war in Iraq,” Edwards says in his speech.

“But there is a difference between doing everything in our power to keep America safe and a reckless, belligerent policy that actually makes us less safe,” he continues. “The preventive war doctrine was a stunning departure from the policy that had kept America safe during both world wars and during the Cold War. It is wrong on the merits, wrong on the morals, and wrong for America.

“The bottom line is simple - no combat troops; no combat missions; no combat, period. Not sometime to be determined, not by 2013, by the end of my first year as president, by the end of 2009.”

The speech is called “Learning the Lesson of Iraq: A New Strategy for Iran,” and includes what his campaign calls a “plan for Iran” based on five principles: end the “preventive war” doctrine, use bolder and more targeted economic sanctions, use incentives, reengage with Iran, and reengage with other major nations on the challenge of Iran.

“George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the neocon warmongers used Sept. 11 to start a war with Iraq and now they’re trying to use Iraq to start a war with Iran,” Edwards says. “And we have to stop them. As a nation, we stand today at a fork in the road with Iran. We have a real choice about the direction we’ll take.

“One path will replay the last seven years. It leads toward a dark future of belligerence, aggression, and war,” he adds. “We need a new direction-one that will defuse the Iran threat, rather than aggravate it, one that will make America safer, not make the world more dangerous.”

In his attack on Clinton, Edwards says: “With less than 60 days to the caucus, Senator Clinton has still not given specific answers to specific questions. How many troops will she withdraw, and when will she withdraw them? All she’s said is that she will meet with her generals within two months of taking office. That’s not a plan. That’s not even a real promise. It’s the promise of a planning meeting.

”What’s more, Senator Clinton wants to keep combat troops in Iraq to perform combat missions in Iraq. She will extend the war. I will end the war. Only in Washington would anybody believe that you can end the war and continue combat. On a matter as serious as Iraq, we need honesty and real answers-not more double-talk.”