Sen. Hillary Clinton says she will begin to withdraw troops within 60 days of taking office, no matter what.

Asked her whether she thinks she knows better than the commanders in Iraq, who say the troops need to stay, she responsed: “We don’t know what will happen as we withdraw. We do know what will happen if we stay mired in Iraq” She thinks as long as the soldiers are there, the Iraqi government will not step up, troops will be stretched and the U.S. can’t shore up its standing in the world.

Obama’s staff has said a 16-month plan to get most troops out is concrete. Obama, asked about this, says he’ll get it done, because the commander-in-chief sets the mission. “The buck stops with me.” Iraq is not “sustainable.” Too, there’s bigger fish to fry, such as Afghanistan.

He doesn’t, as one would have expected, take the opportunity to point out he opposed the war from the start, contrary to Clinton’s position.

On Iran, Obama:  

“I will do whatever is required to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the Iranians.” He thinks that needs to involve direct talks, but he “would take no options off the table.”

He adds: “An attack on Israel is an attack on our strongest ally in the region… That would be an act of aggression that I and the United States would be unacceptable.”

Clinton says, “We are at a very dangerous point with Iran… Iran has not been deterred.” Clinton says deterrent policy needs to extend beyond Israel. She says that takes “skilled diplomacy.” She wants the U.S. umbrella of protection to extend to other partners in the Middle East, assuming they meet our conditions.

She does say that “an attack on Israel would bring massive retaliation.” Will that come back to haunt her?