Anticipating The "New Plan" For Iraq

Past Time To Get Real On Iraq

This evening President Bush will use up some of our prime time television viewing to spin his "new plan" for Iraq. The problem is that despite the spin, the political gyrations and the bovine excrement, there really isn't a new plan. The current thinking is that we are going to escalate troop levels for the purpose of honing in on the trouble spots surrounding Baghdad and a western province. The plan is to jump from trouble spot to trouble spot putting out "fires" as the insurgents and criminals attempt to take charge of a neighborhood, metro area division or region. The Iraq Study Group, as well as those military leaders trained in counter-insurgency and terrorism tactics, has identified this approach as being unsound. What has been recommended is a clear plan of sweeping and leaving the people identified as being non-combatants in charge with a working--and effective--police and/or national security force to assist. Also recommended is the re-establishment and improvement of the basic utility infrastructure and community services, especially electricity, clean water, food and health care.

As I predicted in a post on this subject made before Christmas 2005, President Bush has waited until just before the State-of-the-Union (SOU) address to release the details of this plan. This is purely a political tactic designed to draw attention away from the real issues and the demand from a majority of American voters to develop a plan to withdraw our troops in the fastest and safest manner possible.

Interestingly enough, I was listening to an NPR radio broadcast that took notice of another aspect of this new plan that calls for a so-called "temporary" expansion and escalation of troop numbers. The commentators in this broadcast suggested that the mere proposal of troop expansion returns the ball to the new Dem-controlled congress and misdirects all scrutiny from the White House, the executive branch and the conduct of affairs in the various combat fronts in which we are engaged. By placing the ball squarely in the Dems' court, the focus is on how fast the new Dem leadership is going to screw up. Of course, it did not take Nancy Pelosi or Senator Reid long to reveal their true colors and live up to the expectation that screw ups will occur quickly. In this case, they called for a fast vacation day, despite the promise for a minimum five-day work week, for the purposes of "preparing" to watch a college football bowl game between Ohio State and Florida.

Talk about screwing up, the game did not begin until 8:30 PM, which means they could have worked the entire regular work day plus a couple of overtime hours without missing the game or losing the opportunity to set up party essentials. In typical congressional fashion, they proved that they think of themselves as elite and better than the average working American who has to work through not only football bowl games, but also their children's school activities, some family gatherings, and other important events that make live interesting.

In the fray and media circus being created by the Bush administration spin, we are misdirected from noticing that the Bush administration has "enacted" several new signing statements on a few bills, as well as initiating another grab for expanded executive powers by examining US mail without probable cause, warrants or oversight by judicial or congressional sources.

It is time for a new plan for Iraq, but not the plan that Bush has in mind. It is time for the Dem leadership to recognize that the only way to fix this is to remove Bush and Cheney--and then the cronies serving at State, Justice, DOD, and the West Wing. But Pelosi has declared this approach off limits and that is a major mistake. Pelosi should really take a good look at what happened to Gerald Ford after he provided Nixon a blanket pardon on the misguided notion that it helped to heal the nation from the scandal of Watergate. In reality, the pardon for Nixon only opened the door for the Iran-Contra Affair and the crap that George W. is pulling now.

We’ve been down this road before. This time, it has to be different.

There have been too many times that President Bush has promised a new strategy on Iraq, only to repeat the same old set of failed approaches and unachievable objectives. Americans need to hear Mr. Bush offer something truly new — not more glossy statements about ultimate victory, condescending platitudes about what hard work war is, or aimless vows to remain “until the job is done.”

If the voters sent one clear message to Mr. Bush last November, it was that it is time to start winding down America’s involvement in this going-nowhere war.

What they need is for the president to acknowledge how bad things have gotten in Iraq (not just that it is not going as well as he planned) and to be honest about how limited the remaining options truly are. The country wants to know how Mr. Bush plans to end its involvement in a way that preserves as much of the nation’s remaining honor and influence as possible, limits the suffering of the Iraqi people and the harm to Iraq’s neighbors, and gives Iraqi leaders a chance — should they finally decide to take it — to rescue their country from an even worse disaster once the Americans are gone.

The reality that Mr. Bush needs to acknowledge when he speaks to the nation tomorrow night is that the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is feeding rather than restraining Iraq’s brutal civil war. The Iraqi Army cannot be relied on to impose order even in Baghdad, while the Iraqi police forces — dominated by sectarian militias — are inciting the mayhem.

Mr. Bush must acknowledge that there is no military solution for Iraq. Whatever plan he offers needs to start with a tough set of political benchmarks for national reconciliation that the Iraqi government is finally expected to meet. It needs to concentrate enough forces in Baghdad to bring some security to streets and neighborhoods, giving Iraq’s leaders one last opportunity to try to bargain their way out of civil war.

His plan needs to lay out tight timetables in which the Iraqis must take major steps to solve fundamental issues, including equitably dividing their oil wealth and disarming vengeful militias. There must also be a clear and rapid timetable for achieving enough stability in Baghdad to hand back significant military responsibilities to the Iraqis.

The last time America presented Mr. Maliki with a set of political benchmarks, he bluntly rejected them. If he does that again, there is no way America can or should try to secure Iraq on its own. Mr. Bush must make clear to both Iraqis and Americans that without significant progress, American forces will not remain.

We’re under no illusions. Meeting those challenges is going to be extremely tough. And Iraq’s unraveling may already be too far gone.

For Mr. Bush, this means resisting any vague Nixonian formula of “peace with honor” that translates into more years of fighting on for the same ever-receding goals. Democrats in Congress should also resist euphemistic formulas like “phased redeployment,” which really means trying to achieve with even fewer troops what Washington failed to achieve with current force levels.

Nor can America simply turn its back on whatever happens to Iraq after it leaves. With or without American troops, a nightmare future for Iraq is a nightmare future for the United States, too, whether it consists of an expanding civil war that turns into a regional war or millions of Iraq’s people and its oil fields falling under the tightening grip of a more powerful Iran.

Mr. Bush is widely expected to announce a significant increase in American troops to deploy in Baghdad’s violent neighborhoods. He needs to explain to Congress and the American people where the dangerously tapped-out military is going to find those troops. And he needs to place a strict time limit on any increase, or it will turn into a thinly disguised escalation of the American combat role.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that just under 23,000 Iraqi civilians and police officers died violently in 2006, more than 17,000 of them in the last six months. That is a damning indictment of the Maliki government, and of current American military strategy.

That is the Iraq that Americans want Mr. Bush to deal with tomorrow night.