Gore opposed the invasion, and opposes longterm occupation
In his 6/4/06 interview on This Week, Al Gore said the following regarding Iraq:
"I would pursue the twin objectives of trying to withdraw our forces as quickly as we possibly can, while at the same time minimizing the risk that we'll make the mess over there even worse and raise even higher the danger of civil war," Gore said.
Dismissing calls for any deadline, Gore added, "It's possible that setting a deadline could set in motion forces that would make it even worse. I think that we should analyze that very carefully. My guess is that a deadline is probably not the right approach; ....
My thoughts on this below the fold.
"Iraq war" has three parts:
1. Invasion
2. Reconstruction and stabilization
3. Withdrawal (vs longterm occupation, the neocon design)
Gore opposed the Invasion emphatically in his 9/23/2002 speech, two weeks ahead of the senate vote on the war resolution, despite strong, although misguided, public support for an invasion at the time. Please see this 12/11/02 hardball interview of Al Gore as well, where Gore said the following:
MATTHEWS: But you would have voted against it.
GORE: I would have voted against that resolution (ed. the Iraq War Resolution, that is). I would have voted against it.
...
MATTHEWS: Is there anything that the inspectors could find or the president could produce as evidence to justify an attack on Iraq?
GORE: Well, an attack-sure, if we found weapons of mass destruction, then we are justified by the United Nations resolution and acting as an agent -
MATTHEWS: But as an American, would that justify a war as an American to you?
GORE: It would justify a military strike to destroy those weapons. There's a difference between striking to destroy the weapons and unilaterally invading to change the regime.
From his words "withdraw our forces as quickly as we possibly can" from his This Week interview, Gore clearly opposes any longterm occupation, and, why we would have opposed an invasion in the first place otherwise?
On (2), progressives have differences of opinion. Gore appears keen on not leaving a gigantic mess behind, and hence opines that an immediate withdrawal is not such a good idea.
I used to feel that way some eight months ago, with a 1.5-2 year time window for accomplishing some well-defined objectives. However, I now prefer a quick hand-over of the command and control to the Iraqis, and a quick redeployment of a portion of our forces, while bringing home the rest, especially the abusively over used reserve and national guards troops. However, the biggest problem with implementing this approach could come from not having a meaningful "quick hand-over", because there aren't many well-trained Iraqi troops out there, thanks to the mendacious and incompetent excuse for an administration, namely the Bush whitehouse. Therefore, if one quickly redeploys (and brings a portion of the troops home), then the redeployed forces will have to be ready to instantly respond to any attacks on Iraq from neighbors, as well as serious internal strifes.
I am guessing, partly based on his Iraq war speech in opposition, that if Al Gore were the commander-in-chief at the current point of time, he would probably go to the UN, make it explicitly clear that we have no intentions of longterm occupation or economic domination of Iraq, call for help from the UN in terms of both military and peacekeeping forces, and workout a multilateral approach to solving the problem. Given his sagacity and wisdom that has been proven right time and again, I would be willing to give deference to his approach on this, but I still would prefer putting a timeline (of 1-1.5 year, for example) around such a plan because, if the job of building up Iraq to the point that it can defend itself is done systematically and competently, then Iraq will have to fend for itself and chart its own destiny thereafter.