By Dick Morris And Eileen McGann on May 2, 2008

Published on FOXNews.com on May 2, 2008.

Bill O’Reilly asked Hillary Clinton the key question about the war in Iraq: What happens if we pull out and the Iranians move in? She talked around the issue, but never gave a convincing answer to O’Reilly’s question. She said she would replace force with diplomacy. But, as Frederick the Great said, “Diplomacy without force is like music without instruments.” If our troops are long gone from Iraq, the Iranians will snub our diplomacy and laugh at our entireties. They will add Iraq to their other trophies in the region: Syria, Lebanon and Gaza.





If, by some chance, Hillary is the nominee, then the same problem will land in her lap and she showed in trying to parry O’Reilly’s thrust, that she won’t be any better at answering the doubts than Obama would be.

The truth is that the Democrats are cashing in on a mindless impatience with Iraq and an unwillingness to think through the consequences of pulling out. They are capitalizing on an emotional “no”in reaction to the war. But when the alternatives are carefully explained and examined, as they will be in a presidential debate, they are not going to embrace the answers Obama or Hillary will have to the “what ifs.”They will see the Democratic position as extremist and unworkable and will come to see the Democratic candidate who is pushing them as unprepared and unrealistic. If the candidate is Obama, their concerns will resonate with their perception that he is inexperienced and doesn’t know his way around foreign policy. This will raise more and more doubts about his ability to lead us in a time of crisis.

This unholy mess in Iraq, which has almost destroyed the Republican party and has destroyed the Bush presidency, may yet rebound and work against the Democrats in the election this year.

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