By Caren Bohan

COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 15 (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be "won" within four years, leaving a functioning democracy there and allowing most U.S. troops to come home.

The Arizona senator's two Democratic rivals for the White House, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, are running on a pledge to begin bringing U.S. troops home right away and have linked McCain's policies on the unpopular war to those of President George W. Bush.

The Democratic candidates also charge McCain wants to keep the United States entangled in Iraq for 100 years.

McCain says any decades-long presence of U.S. troops would be aimed at maintaining stability in the region and has likened it to the U.S. military presence in Japan, South Korea and Germany.

McCain, running in the November election to succeed Bush in 2009, described a scenario he thought he could achieve within his first four-year term.

"By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom," McCain said in prepared remarks from a speech he was to deliver in Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday.

"The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced," McCain said.

The Republican senator said that although the United States would still have a troop presence in Iraq, those soldiers would not need a "direct combat role" because Iraqi forces would be capable of providing order.

McCain has argued that Obama and Clinton are promising a "reckless" pullout from Iraq, a pledge he says they would never be able to keep once they face the realities.

The unpopularity of Bush and the Iraq war has taken a toll on the political fortunes of McCain's Republican colleagues.

Republicans, who lost control of Congress to Democrats in 2006 elections, have suffered some losses in special election contests this year, including a race in Mississippi on Tuesday where Democrat Travis Childers won a U.S. House of Representatives seat in Mississippi.

Vice President Dick Cheney had campaigned against Childers and Republican ads tried to link him to Democratic presidential front-runner Obama, viewed by many Mississippians as too liberal.

McCain, who has tried to distance himself from Bush on some policies like the environment, told reporters on Wednesday he recognized his party's battered image would pose difficulties for his presidential bid.

"We've got a lot of work to do," McCain said. "I have a lot of work to do. I understand the challenge. I'm confident at the end of the day that my vision and plan for action for this nation will gain a majority of the votes. But I have no illusions."

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