By Brigitte L. Nacos
The linguistic acrobatics performed by the White House spin
doctors have been once again adopted by the political class—regardless whether
they agree or disagree with the President’s next step—and by many in the news
media. Instead of calling the expected increase in the number of troops in Iraq an
escalation or build-up, the more benign White House term “surge” seems to carry
the day. Whether
the President and his advisers decide on 15,000 or 20,000 or 25,000 additional
troops to be deployed in Baghdad and elsewhere and for how long, will not matter as far as the outcome of this
alleged leg in the “war on terrorism” is concerned. Caught in a deadly battle
between Shiites and Sunnis and under assault of terrorists the U.S. invasion helped
to recruit and drew to Iraq, more American soldiers on the ground will mean
more American fatalities and casualties in addition to the more than 3,000
Americans already killed and more than 20,000 injured in this war. It is hard
to imagine that President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and Senators McCain and
Graham and others still believe that this war can be won. Nor do we know what “winning”
means for them—and for us. On yesterday’s “Meet the Press” Senator
Lindsey Graham appeared close to hysterical in his insistence that more
boots on the ground were needed for the United States not to lose but to
win this war.
Are the President and his supporters still dreaming that a
model democracy for the Middle East in the American image will emerge from the democratically
elected and so-called unity government in Baghdad in which, as Frank Rich
reminds us, the “radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr, an ally of Hezbollah and
Hamas, a thug responsible for the deaths of untold Iraqis and Americans alike…
control[s] 30 seats in the Iraqi Parliament, four government ministries and
death squads (a k a militias) more powerful than the nominal Iraqi army?” Even
if Prime Minister al-Maliki tried to
change things around, there is no reason to believe that he would succeed but
rather driven out of office. And how can the President and his supporters
overlook that democratic elections brought Hamas to power in the Palestinian
territories and Hezbollah into the government in Lebanon.
Senator Joseph Biden, who just declared his candidacy for
the 2008 Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency, has suggested that
the current regime’s real intent is to continue its “we’re not winning, we’re
not losing” stance until the new president takes office in early 2009. As the
Senator sees it, there will be a repeat of the Vietnam experience in that Bush sticks his successor to be “the guy landing helicopters
inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof” just as Richard Nixon stuck
his successor Gerald Ford with retreating from Saigon. This seems the most likely scenario for the end of the Iraq fiasco.
For the moment, President Bush follows the example set by his former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld before the Iraq invasion—replacing generals courageous enough to voice their own views with agreeable ones.
Looking to the new Democratic majorities in the two chambers of Congress to prevent the President from escalating our military commitment in Iraq is unrealistic. George W. Bush is the commander-in-chief and has the powers that come with this constitutional designation for another two years. For the Congress to adopt a law that would set the maximum troop level for Iraq would probably be unconstitutional. If Democrats were to withhold funds needed for a troop build-up in Iraq, they would be blamed by their political foes for whatever will go wrong in Iraq and the region under the revamped strategy.
Opposition to the Iraq war was the most likely reason why Americans voted against Republican and for Democratic candidates in last fall’s elections. Since then, public opinion has turned even more against the war. The President is expected to disregard public sentiments in the hope that positive developments in Iraq will lift up his and the Republican party’s public approvals.
After the President reveals his plans for Iraq, the news media and congressional Democrats have particular responsibilities: the news media must report factually and initiate, encourage, and provide a stage for serious public debate with a diversity of views on the President’s Iraq plans; the Democrats in Congress must insist on comprehensive oversight of executive departments and agencies--including the disclosure of previously withheld information about the failures in Iraq, and they must ask tough questions in their hearings.
All of this would allow Americans to form well informed opinions about the pro and con of the forthcoming new Iraq strategy and a host of related questions and issues.
Graham's right that more troops are needed to win, but 20-40k will do very little. They need 400,000 troops to win and they don't have them.
Posted by: PoliticalCritic | January 08, 2007 at 11:50 AM