Yesterday, during a visit with U.S. Patrol at the Mexican border, President Bush previewed the big speech on Iraq that he plans to deliver this morning at the U.S. Naval Academy. He declared his intent to reinforce border controls as part of his new (get tough) immigration policy and accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces as part of his (never say quit, never, never) war against Muslim terrorists in Iraq
No matter how forcefully President Bush insists that he will not make decisions about what to do in Iraq based on politics at home, that is precisely what he has decided to do. Because nothing but political pressure from Democrats and anxious (CYA) Republicans has compelled him to try emulating FDR’s reassuring fireside chats by delivering a series of chats of his own (beginning today) – in which he touts the pockets of success in Iraq and lays out an exit strategy for American troops.
But, with all due respect to Senator Warner (R-VA) – who offered Bush this “pretend you’re FDR” advice last Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, this political PR strategy for exiting Iraq seems as misguided as the military “shock and awe” strategy was going into Iraq. Because the problem with Iraq is not a failure to communicate successes; instead, it is the overriding fact that Americans do not see Bush’s prosecution of this war as a life or death proposition the way Americans a generation ago saw FDR’s prosecution of World War II. (Which, of course, is why they all tuned-in to every word FDR uttered on the progress of that war.)
Indeed, by contrast, most Americans have already decided that going to war in Iraq was a mistake and are now only interested in hearing when the troops will be coming home. Therefore, there seems little hope that Americans, in any significant number, will tune-in to hear anything Bush has to say about the progress of this war. Even worse, since the war in Iraq is now tagged, irredeemably, as an elective war (based on faulty or misleading intelligence), every American soldier killed in Iraq now represents thousands of people back home who are losing faith in Bush’s leadership – not only on Iraq but also on the global war against Islamic Jihadists (which Bush refers to amorphously as a “war on terror [or terrorism]”).
But, as I indicated in this article months ago, the only thing Bush can do (not say) to salvage the honour of the American military, restore faith in his leadership and build a democratic country in the heart of the Muslim Middle East (which is the only rational course to take at this point) is to execute the Powell Doctrine:
Instead of withdrawing troops, as his narrow-minded and politically motivated critics are demanding, Bush should double or even triple the number of troops on the ground so that they are controlling every nook and cranny of Iraq (including monitoring activities inside insurgent fortress masquerading as mosques). After all, willing Iraqis and their western advisers and contractors have no chance of building democratic institutions (including a reliable police force and viable army) and rebuilding the country’s infrastructure under constant fear of attack by Islamic insurgents. It’s really that simple!
Note: No amount of reassuring talk in America (about “standing up” Iraqi forces) can mitigate the demoralizing fact that – 2 years into this war – it still takes an act of uncommon heroism in Iraq just to vote. Moreover, Bush is now waging precisely the kind of war his father warned against: an endless, no-win, guerilla war against fanatical insurgents (just like in Vietnam!).
The only way to deal with this hornet’s nest is by smothering the insurgents with overwhelming military force and, effectively, putting Iraq under similar marshal law conditions that allowed American soldiers to oversee the rebuilding of Germany and Japan after WWII. (And Bush should declare unequivocally that U.S. troops shall remain in Iraq just as long, if not longer!)
As former Secretary of State Colin Powell admonished before Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq: if you break it, you own it. And, whether he has 3,000 or 300,000 American troops deployed, Bush created the mess in Iraq and he has to clean it up. And, damn the politics (American and Iraqi); this is war!
News and Politics
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