In Iraq, counting on stubborn and dealing with the tired

Bush

In my weekend column in the print edition, that's already somewhat outdated (it was written Wednesday, before some of the information on Bush's new appointments were made), I wrote about the administration and its new Iraq policy. Next week President George Bush may do again what he has already done on numerous occasions in the past: prove again to the world that he is not one to flinch in the face of public opinion and its caprices. Again he will present to the public his iron backbone. His many opponents will view this as signs of either stubbornness or stupidity; his supporters will brandish it as proof that he is a leader of character.

None of this is apparently of any interest to Bush. He has long since grasped that he will spend his remaining time in the White House in splendid electoral isolation. Accordingly, his decisions are not intended for the satisfaction of voters in the present, but rather for the perusal of the historians in the future.

In a survey conducted a few days ago, the U.S. public was asked to choose the "villain" of 2006. Bush won handily. Twenty-five percent of the respondents cited his name, while behind him trailed leaders who are apparently less harmful, such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il who, by the way, was followed on the list by Donald Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary.

It is hard to believe that a decision to send more troops to Iraq will necessarily improve Bush's public standing, but the continuing leaks concerning the president's remarks before announcement of his decision has pointed to this as a concrete and even reasonable possibility.

Bush will likely make the announcement in an address to the nation next week. What is the essence of the plan? That is the big question. The headlines about "troop reinforcements" encompass only one detail of several important points. First of all, how many troops (the estimates range from 10,000 to 40,000)? How long will they be there? Will their presence in Iraq be limited to a specific period? And what is the purpose of the reinforcements? Will their main mission be to "secure the population" - or, perhaps, "to transfer the reins to the Iraqi army as quickly as possible?"

McCain

Friday at the American Enterprise Institute, Frederick Kagan released his report (with General Jack Keane, U.S. Army, ret) calling for a substantial and sustained surge of U.S. troops to secure and protect critical areas of Baghdad. Many questions can be asked about such plan but the one aspect I find the most troubling is their own admittance that "this approach requires a national commitment to victory in Iraq." If what they mean by national commitment is public commitment, such a thing is hard to find.

But you can find commitment among some the few more stubborn leaders of this nation. Two of them, McCain and Joe Lieberman showed up at the AEI right after Kagan?s presentation. "I want to emphasize again - the consequences - the catastrophic consequences of failure I think many of us are aware of," Senator McCain said, "and I believe that the war is still winnable. But to prevail, we'll need to do everything right, and the Iraqis will have to do their part."

In my column I wrote that "Many believe that a victory of the sort that Bush is interested in is simply not within the realm of possibility. However, the president also has some important supporters, among them Senator John McCain, a lone voice calling for more forces in the past year, whose political future - like the race for the presidency - clearly depends on the outcome of such a decision. If it is perceived as a failure, it will be hard to forget who recommended it so enthusiastically." McCain made this prediction even more valid in his remarks Friday.

"The worst thing that could happen here is that there be some kind of attempt to resolve this pivotal moment where they compromise among factions in American politics and in the American Congress rather than doing what is right and has the highest prospect of succeeding in Iraq," Lieberman said. In the crowd, more than one wondered whether these two are planning on running on the same political ticket in 2008. They seemed at ease with each other, and expressed similar priorities regarding the most pressing issues of the day.

Maliki

The last part of my column put some emphasize on the interview given by the Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, in which he stated that he is tired of his job and will be happy to step down before his term expires. "Are we concerned about doing everything right and the Iraqis having to do their part? Of course we are," McCain said. And there?s a good reason to worry. With a new defense secretary, new Deputy State Secretary, two new top generals, and a new ambassador to Iraq the president will have a fresh team that will lead a new policy. The question is what kind of Iraqi leadership it will have to contend with and how it will manage those relations. A burned-out prime minister is not the leader Bush is now looking for in Iraq. But in contrast to his own tired warriors, on and off the field of battle, whom he can simply replace, Bush will have to accept the Iraqis as a given.