Political Cover for Whom?
WAPO
Sunday, July 29, 2007
President Bush is facing some painful choices on Iraq. As he weighs the high strategic stakes in the Middle East and the high political stakes at home, history may provide some relevant lessons.
Since the Iraq Study Group issued its report in December, Bush has been urged from many quarters to seek a bipartisan bargain with Congress. This, the theory goes, will give him political cover for the strategic as well as political risks that disengagement may entail. But Bush should be wary: The promised political cover may not materialize. If he begins a disengagement against his better judgment and that of his commanders, and the result accelerates the destabilization of Iraq and the Middle East, the names of James Baker, Lee Hamilton, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will be relegated to footnotes. History’s bumper sticker will record that George W. Bush pulled the plug. It will be his legacy alone. The president may prefer, instead, that the historical record be unambiguous about who forced an unwise decision.
Public opinion, of course, can change. In 1973, 1974 and 1975, Congress undoubtedly felt it was reflecting the country’s disillusionment with the Vietnam War, and it forced a disengagement over the Nixon administration’s strong objection. Yet military historians are coming to a consensus that by the end of 1972, there was a much-improved balance of forces in Vietnam, reflected in the 1973 Paris agreement, and that Congress subsequently pulled the props out from under that balance of forces — dooming Indochina to a bloodbath. This is now a widely accepted narrative of the endgame in Vietnam, and it has haunted the Democrats for a generation.
Today, Congress, too, faces a pivotal choice on Iraq. The moment that Congress enacts a law constricting the president’s freedom of action in Iraq, it buys a considerable share of responsibility for the war’s outcome. Will tomorrow’s narrative be that the strategic military situation in Iraq was starting to improve in 2007 but Congress pulled the plug anyway — emboldening Islamist extremists throughout the region and demoralizing all our friends? If so, perhaps it’s not President Bush who needs political cover from his opponents but they who want political cover from him.
The huge strategic stakes in the Middle East argue for resisting calls for any U.S. withdrawal not warranted by conditions in Iraq. The irony is that whoever is elected president next year — from whichever party — will come to understand this better than anyone.
From this perspective, Bush owes it to his successor to achieve the maximum possible stabilization of Iraq so that his successor will have the maximum options. The successor can pull the plug immediately and blame it all on Bush; go all-out to win; or begin a controlled disengagement, as Richard Nixon decided to do when he inherited the Vietnam War in 1969. Conversely, if Bush himself begins a process of unraveling, his successor will inherit a range of choices far worse than what the country faces now.
Those running for president, especially, would be well advised, amid the excitement of the campaign, to reflect on what will be required of the winner. Potentially the most destabilizing new factor in the world in the coming period is the fear of American weakness. All the hyperventilation about American hubris and unilateralism is a tired cliche; it never had much validity anyway. The real problem is that the pressures pushing us to accept defeat in Iraq are already profoundly unnerving to allies in the Middle East, and elsewhere, who rely on the United States to help ensure their security in the face of continuing dangers. If we let ourselves be driven out of Iraq, what the world will seek most from the next president will not be some great demonstration of humility and self-abasement — that is, to be the “un-Bush” — but rather for reassurance that the United States is still strong, capable of acting decisively and committed to the security of its friends. Given our domestic debate, to provide this reassurance will be an uphill battle in the best of circumstances. It will be even more difficult if President Bush succumbs to all the pressures on him to do the wrong thing in Iraq.
The writer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, served most recently as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.
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It is deja vu all over, again. The defeatocrats started in ‘73 telling the communists that they were going to cut beans and bullets money from South Vietnam. They told the communists that if they just wait until they succeed in that it will be easier for them to take over the South. The communists took the advice of the defeatocrats, built up along the Cambodian and Laotian border and when the defeatocrats succeeded in ‘75 they rolled right in with their chinese communist financed blitzkreig. The defeatocrats cut by half the funding to the South and would not even let us use our Air Force to give them air cover to knock out the tanks that the north used in their blitzkreig. The South had been handed a reasonable facsimile of a democracy and a reasonably trained military and they simply ran out of ammunition. The US lived up to the agreements of the Paris Peace Talks, the north did not. Kissenger told the South not to worry, we’d be close by. The South did not ask to have the US send back in the troops, all they needed were some bullets. The defeatocrats said “no”. The defeatocrats completely dismissed the efforts of 58,000 dead GIs, that lead to the destabilization of Cambodia which lead to the defeatocrats being responsible for the 2 million murdered in the Killing Fields of Pol Pot and the defeatocrats are responsible for the millions murdered in South Vietnam (despite what kerry will try to tell you today) and all of the South Vietnamese that voted with their rafts, floated out to sea and became the Vietnamese Boat People. The defeatocrats at least stationed the US Navy well off shore to pick them up at sea. That’s exactly what they did and they alone are responsible for. They are desperately dying to do an encore and will do everything they possibly can to accomplish handing Iraq over to the Iranians. The minute the defeatocrats succeed Iran will roll right into Iraq and with the combined oil money will become even more of a threat than they already are. Number one on their list of things to do is to kill all of the Jews and number two is to have the rest of us hit the prayer rug five times a day and if we refuse we will have to have our heads chopped off. I’m not making this up, they have told us that’s what they will do. The defeatocrats have no problem with that. It looks to me that the defeatocrats were in bed with the communists in ‘75 and it looks to me that they’re in bed with the islamofacists today. Actions speak louder than words. They dismissed the efforts of 58,000 dead GIs back then and they want to add to that list today. Oh, but no, they’re all about the troops. Only they forgot to mention that it was the communist troops then and it’s the islmofacist troops/terrorists today. Perhaps they think we don’t have eyes and ears. The defeatocrats are committed to the defeat of the United States.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:05 amSolid Post ^^. Some things never change; I just don’t understand how people like Reid and Murtha, etc. can’t se the damage that will occur if their actions are succesful.
July 30th, 2007 at 5:35 amI think we are moving rapidly towards the day, when we will be faced with a situation where we will have no choice but to revolt against these casper milquetoasts and take this country back by force of arms.
There doesn’t seem to be too many alternatives left.
July 30th, 2007 at 9:55 amRefresh my memory … Did ANYONE see the ISG on their local election ballots in the last several elections? Why the hell does the public just assume to take the ISG’s (and the dhimmicrat’s insistence of the “importance” of) “recommondations” as decided and handed down law to this Administration that MUST be followed in this war? Where do the dhimmicrats get off assuming to usurp this President’s CIC powers to the ISG?
July 30th, 2007 at 4:11 pmYeah, as Hanson points out somewhere recently, the “triangulation” gambit is showing itself to be sterile and self-detonating, and GW’s intransigent persistence the only winning game in town. Hudda thunk?
(Quite a few of us, actually.)
August 1st, 2007 at 5:07 am