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Monday, October 17, 2005

Mission Accomplished? Not Exactly...

The New York Times reports that the Bush administration is taking a more sober and realistic view of the situation in Iraq. Didn't take these guys long, did it?

In an article published today, David Sanger reports on a "new tone" in the Bush administration -- one that recognizes that the mission is not about to be accomplished any time soon. According to Sanger, "Senior officials say the intelligence reports flowing over their desks in recent months argue that even if democratic institutions take hold, the insurgency may strengthen." So much for the theory that democracy is the key to unraveling the insurgency, or is it just that democracy at the point of a gun is not effective? What sort of democracy is it, when your country is occupied by the army of a foreign power?

Had our own Constitution been written while British troops were billeted in our communities and conducting search and destroy missions in our neighborhoods, how do you think we would regard the document?

Sanger describes President Bush's ambivalence about responding to the public statements of bin Laden and Zawahiri:

"...one of Mr. Bush's most senior aides said recently. "But the president was concerned that we hadn't described Iraq to the American people for what it is - a struggle of ideologies that isn't going to end with one election, or one constitution, or even a string of elections."

Mr Bush's "senior aide" might have been more honest if he admitted that the Bush policy in Iraq was a complete failure, that we are adrift without any plan except "stay the course" (ie,"more of the same"), and that the Bushies are left now to simply ride out the next three years and see what happens. Of course, the upcoming mid-term elections may force them to abandon this feckless course, as even Republicans will be clamoring for more than "more of the same".

I suspect that the "new tone" from the White House will not help them shore up support for the war, but will instead cause the many Americans on the fence to shift to a "bring them home" position as they realize that the Bushies haven't got a clue or a chance in hell. Bush has been out of ideas, and luck, for many months and now is almost out of time.

We may soon see a full-blown civil war erupting under our feet in Iraq, but even if things stay "normal" and we have only 500 attacks in Iraq every week for the next few months, my guess is that we will spend the next few months looking for a way to get out of Iraq before the elections next November.

It is a shame that we have let so many Americans die for Bush (What else did they die for? Do you feel more secure?) and that only the political pressure of a mid-term election holds any hope of preventing this war from continuing for years to come.

Sanger's article includes this sad but oddly hopeful insight from Ken Pollack -- we may not yet be at the end of this debacle, but after 12/15/05 we will shift into a new phase which may finally be the beginning of the end:

Kenneth Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst and now a scholar at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, said Mr. Bush's new tone reflected "the fact that their whole theory about how this is going to work out isn't working, and almost certainly isn't going to work." He added, "The theory that democracy is the antidote to insurgency gets disproven on the ground every day."

The real test may come after parliamentary elections, which, if the constitution is found to have passed this weekend, are scheduled for Dec. 15. After that date, a senior administration official noted with some dread in his voice, "there are no more democratic landmarks for us to point to - that's when we learn whether the Iraqi state can stay together."

posted at 8:47:00 AM by Neil

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