August 24, 2007
How To Force Bush To End The War
Here's some hopeful news for you anti-war protesters out there: By the middle of next year, it may be impossible to keep current operations going in Iraq.
Obviously, there really isn't anything hopeful or positive about this development. Officials inside and outside the Pentagon have been saying for at least a couple of years that the military was nearing its breaking point. According to Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace, everything goes poof in 2008 unless forces in Iraq are reduced by almost half, the Los Angeles Times reports.
There's good reason to suspect that so long as U.S. forces continue to make some gains on the ground, as is currently the case, President Bush will continue to say that the U.S. is winning and should keep at it until Iraq is a semblance of a self-sustaining nation. Probably the only thing that could compel Bush to order a withdrawal is being told that unless he and the rest of the Bush clan are willing to take up arms and fight the war themselves, keeping it going is a physical impossibility.
Nothing else has worked, that's certain. Congressional Democrats, a growing number of Republicans, a boatload of former White House officials and two-thirds of the American public haven't swayed Bush from his current course. The fairest and most reasonable explanation for this may be that when it comes to Iraq, Bush threw politics out the window long ago. When he says that "we're still in the early hours of the current ideological struggle" and "as long as I'm commander in chief, we will fight to win," he really seems to mean it.
What we should look for next is whether administration officials successfully quiet Pace as he gears up to advise the president that troop levels must drop from the current 162,000 to fewer than 100,000. As the Times report points out, the Joint Chiefs did not back the "surge" strategy at first, and were eventually persuaded to publicly back it. If Pace does make a convincing argument that the U.S. military must reduce its presence in Iraq in order to maintain America's defensive posture elsewhere in the world, Bush will be able to end the war without having to suggest that he was ever wrong about it.
Still, there's something a bit fantastical about that scenario. Alternatively, Bush could request longer deployments and shorter stays at home for troops to buy a few more months. But that will happen over the protests of Army Secretary Pete Geren, who told AP that the current 15/12 deployment schedule is already straining military families and contributing to mental health problems for soldiers. There's also reason to believe that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who seemed visibly pained at his April announcement of longer deployment schedules, will resist any such request from the president as well.
Some might be wondering if Congress will put an end to the war in the next session. It's all but certain that the September report on progress in Iraq, delivered by General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, will echo the National Intelligence Estimate [PDF]: some military successes on the ground, a big mess in the Iraqi government. Yesterday's announcement from Virginia Sen. John Warner may inspire a few more Republicans to join the anti-war coalition in Congress. But there are signs Bush has been laying the groundwork for just such a scenario, and that he will ignore whatever Congress throws at him. (See earlier posts from The Gate on Bush's unitary executive theory of governance.)
Which brings us back to the premise that started this post. The only force that could bring the war to an end at this moment may be the physical impossibility of keeping the war going. Again, bad news for the security of the U.S. and its interests around the globe. Anti-war activists concede that the ending they so badly want won't be pretty. They may see just how not-pretty sooner than they thought.
Basra is proving a frightening example of the potential consequences of withdrawal. See reports here and here.
Posted at 2:47 PM
Posted to:
Bush Administration, David Petraeus, Iraq, Middle East, Military, Peter Pace, President Bush, Robert Gates
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