On the other hand, Hillary Clinton has not endorsed any specific time-table, a total withdrawal of troops, and has not even hinted at how quickly a withdrawal would ensue under her command. She warned that withdrawal should not be "oversold" and that "this is going to take awhile."

Similarly, Obama explained that an "orderly phased withdrawal" was necessary, though he would not commit to a specific timetable as he did in early 2007. His campaign has not committed to a cut-off of funds by the date originally proposed - March 31, 2008. Biden added that "they cannot be out by December" and that it would take at least "one full year."

Edwards' position is closer to Richardson's. Although he claims that moving the troops out "would be hard," he does believe that "we can responsibly and in a very orderly way bring our troops out over the next nine or 10 months."

Kucinich favors suspending funding for the war, forcing an immediate, or near-immediate, withdrawal.    

Gravel also supports "pulling everybody out" and "turn(ing) to the Iranians." "Turning to the Iranians" has not been endorsed by any other Democrat.

Gravel, Kucinich, and Richardson support a withdrawal of all U.S. troops as quickly as physically possible.  

Edwards supports withdrawing nearly all within a similar time-table, though he suggests that just a few more months will be needed.  

Clinton and Obama have not continued to support any particular time table and have worked to tie the troop decrease to security needs.  

Biden sits, perhaps, close to the middle, looking for at least a year but still with no specific commitment.

Under the presidencies of Biden, Clinton, and Obama we will more likely to see a significant troop presence in Iraq for a much longer period of time than under those of Edwards, Kucinich, or Richardson.

There are also differences regarding a proposal to divide Iraq along sectarian lines, leaving the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shiites to govern different areas of Iraq.  

Biden explained that "what we should do is separate the parties." But despite Biden's claim that "most of my colleagues are coming around to that plan these days," Obama said that while Biden's point about partition "may be right... it  is important for the Iraqis to arrive at the conclusion that partition  makes sense, as opposed to it being imposed by the United States government. "  There is an obvious difference between encouraging the Iraqis to choose partition and forcing it with a bayonet.

Richardson supports "a tri-partite entity within Iraq," but it is unclear if he means that he supports a three state solution in Iraq or just greater power sharing amongst the three factions.

Gravel directly noted that he "disagreed" with Biden, claiming that it is "American imperialism" at work.  

Clinton did not directly address the partition plan when asked by Stephanopolous.

Kucinich also did not directly address the partition question, but cutting off funds for the war would make implementation of a partition plan by military force impossible.

These differences do not deny that there are similarities.  All Democratic candidates support a military draw-down in Iraq, a sharing of oil revenues, more diplomatic activity and involvement of regional powers, an end to the violence, increased pressure on the Iraqi government, and continued criticism of the decision to launch the war in the first place.  

Given these similarities, are the differences significant?

Yes.

The similarities are inconsequential. Even the Republican candidates share a desire to see a greater sharing of oil revenues, an increase in diplomatic activity, more pressure on the Malaki government, and an end to the violence. All enjoy continued opportunities to criticize President Bush's decision to launch the war in the first place. And while some Republican candidates support the continued troop surge, all favor an eventual withdrawal under the appropriate security conditions.

The differences are consequential. A decision to make a total withdrawal under a short time-frame will have tremendous security implications for Iraq.  

If it is the case that the mere presence of U.S. troops is the primary motivator of the insurgency (hotly contested), a quick and (near) total withdrawal may bring fast peace to Iraq.  If however, the primary point of conflict in Iraq is ethnic, a more rapid withdrawal, particularly one that occurs before Iraqi security forces are capable of functioning independently, may touch off an "all-out civil war".  Dr. Daniel Byman, A Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and an advocate of a planned draw-down explains "the scale of the violence is likely to grow should U.S. forces withdraw or significantly draw down."

Interestingly, Richardson cited Dr. Anthony Cordesman at the Center for International and Security Studies, for his claim that the U.S. military could withdraw in six months.  Richardson implied that Cordesman supported his option.  But this is what Cordesman wrote on August 6th:

The US has some 160,000 military personnel in Iraq and a matching or greater number of civilians and contractors. It has between 140,000 and 200,000 metric tons of valuable equipment and supplies, and some 15,000-20,000 military vehicles and major weapons. It is dispersed in many of Iraqi's cities and now in many forward operating bases. This does not mean that the US cannot leave quickly. It can rush out quickly by destroying or abandoning much of its supplies and equipment, and simply removing its personnel and contractors (and some unknown amount of Iraqis who bet their lives and families on a continued US effort). The more equipment and facilities (and Iraqis) it destroys or abandons, the quicker it can move. Under these conditions, the US could rush out in as little as a few weeks and no more than a few months. A secure withdrawal that removed all US stocks and equipment and phased out US bases, however, would take some 9-12 months or longer [estimates of this vary but if it was 10,000 military plus 10,000 civilians and all equipment each month in Kuwait, that would likely take 16 months minimum; 2 years is what many military experts think would be a rapid, but deliberate pace]. It would involve transferring or destroying facilities and stocks that could fuel a civil war, and reaching some decision about the fate of over $20 billion dollars in aid projects. (It also would involve some decision about the immense new US embassy being constructed in Baghdad, which would become the most expensive white elephant in the history of diplomacy and an extraordinary monument to human folly even by the demanding standards of the Middle East.)

Similarly, if a full-blown civil war, accompanied by a secession of the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds in Iraq is inevitable, Biden's plan, which is backed by other respected reporters such as Peter Galbraith and academics such as Leslie Gelb, of an imposed partition may make the most sense.  On the other hand, imposition of such a plan could outright fail and trigger a massive civil war:

The basic problem with pursuing any version of partition today in Iraq is that it is probably impossible to do so without either causing the all-out civil war in the first place, or deploying the hundreds of thousands of American and other first-world troops whose absence has been the first-order problem preventing reconstruction from succeeding. Other than the Kurds, few Iraqis--whether political leaders, militia commanders or ordinary citizens--want their country divided. And many of those who are fleeing their homes are not merely peacefully resettling in a more ethnically homogeneous region, but are joining vicious sectarian militias like the Mahdi Army in hope of regaining their homes or at least extracting revenge on whoever drove them out.

Biden said partitioning Iraq would work because a partition worked in Bosnia. But, as noted on Sunday through quotations from Reidar Vissser, a Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs who specializes in issues of regionalism and national structures, Bosnia had already experienced and full-blown civil war and an agreement on the Dayton Accords had already been reached.   Iraq is not in a similar situation.

Also, Biden's plan likely violates the Iraqi constitution. According to the Iraqi constitution, the decision to demarcate of any federal entities outside of Kurdistan is left to the Iraqi people.  
Moreover, it is not clear how the U.S. could even support an imposed partition while facilitating a draw-down of its troops. As quoted, a forced partition plan - separating the groups - would require more than 100,000 troops.  

Richardson clearly can't support a six month withdrawal and a forced partition. It doesn't make any more sense for Biden to support a forced partition and a greater draw-down. A forced partition without security forces may simply mean more violence without any means to control it.

The differences are not only consequential for the security and stability of Iraq, but also for the long-term interests of the United States.  

ABC led the Iraq portion of the debate with a new commercial run by the Biden campaign. The commercial begins with Biden articulating the horrors of a returning home with a body of a deceased U.S. soldier and the pain that the soldier's family must feel.  It argues that "we must end this war in a way that doesn't require us to send their grandchild back."  Nearly everyone agrees that a full-blown civil war in Iraq would force us to return to protect our broader economic and security interests in the Middle East.

Ultimately, ending the war in a way that doesn't require us to go back if the security situation deteriorates and the conflict spreads throughout the Middle East, is why the differences are significant. If we have to go back, it doesn't matter that we've left sooner than the Republicans, and some Democrats, would have us depart.  If we have to go back, we will have gained nothing in terms of treasure or the lives of our service members. If we have to go back, we'll be there for as long as any Republican has encouraged us to stay.  

Biden claimed that he is the "only" one with a plan to end the war in Iraq that will not require us to go back. That is quite debatable.  In fact, it seems that the stronger arguments line up against his proposal. Other quick withdrawal plans proposed by many of the Democrats may require us to go back as well.  

Clinton and Obama seem well aware of this, and perhaps that is the reason that they have yet to offer a specific alternative.  At the same time, however, their vague proposals make it both difficult to assess their merits and even start to make it difficult to distinguish them from the proposals of some of the Republican candidates.  

The important question is not "should we eventually leave," but "how should we eventually leave?"  They need specific, defendable answers this question.

The debates have started to reveal some specific answers and differences.  Given that, we need to continue to debate these alternatives out and we need more specifics from some of the leading candidates. Is Obama jumping on board with Biden's plan?  What's Clinton's plan?  We desperately need a better debate on these important differences.  

Pretending that we don't need specific policies and that the differences among existing proposals are insignificant is the biggest mistake that we could make.  It represents the same type of poor decision-making that led us to believe that we would succeed in Iraq in the first place.