Plan for Quagmire

November 30, 2005

I saw Bush’s speech at the Naval Academy, and he didn’t even know what month he was in.

He talked about the Iraqi elections being next month, and then he said, no this month. Poor guy couldn’t figure out whether he was in November or December.

Aside from that, Bush’s message was unmistakable: We’re going to be in Iraq at least until he’s out of office.

“The enemy must be defeated on every battlefield,” he said, early on.

A little later, he added: “We will never back down, we will never give in, and we will never accept anything less than complete victory.”

Still later, he said, “When our mission of defeating the terrorists in Iraq is complete, our troops will return home to a proud nation.”

And finally, in case anyone missed the point, Bush vowed: “To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of bombers and assassins so long as I am your commander-in-chief.”

Problem is, Bush has turned Iraq into a laboratory for bombers and assassins.

And the longer the United States remains there, the more those bombers and assassins will reproduce and do their dirty business.

Bush offered nothing convincing by way of strategy. Though a banner above Bush read “Plan for Victory,” and though that slogan was then emblazoned at least a dozen times behind the podium, Bush’s plan is the same old, same old: train Iraqis to do the killing for us. “Our goal is to train enough Iraqi forces so they carry the fight,” Bush said.

But they’ve proven incapable of doing so up to now, and there’s no reason to suspect they’ll be able to do so down the road.

Bush went into tedious detail about how the Iraqi military and police are being better trained, and about various academies that the United States has helped set up for that purpose. He was especially defensive about a report that said “only one Iraqi battalion has achieved complete independence from the coalition.” But he didn’t refute that report. Here was his response: “To achieve complete independence, an Iraqi battalion must do more than fight the enemy on its own. It must also have the ability to provide its own support elements, including logistics, airlift, intelligence, and command and control through their ministries. Not every Iraqi unit has to meet this level of capability in order for the Iraqi security forces to take the lead in the fight against the enemy.”

OK, maybe “not every Iraqi unit has to,” but more than one would be nice.

On the political front, Bush was equally obtuse.

While he recognized that most people in Iraq opposing the U.S. troops are what he called the Sunni “rejectionists,” he foolishly asserted that they are “increasingly isolated” by Sunnis who are joining the political process.

This is wishful thinking of the most dangerous sort. An overwhelming number of Sunnis have been boycotting the political process, and as they see Iraqi military units abducting, torturing, and murdering Sunnis, they will increasingly resist the new government.

It was thus a particularly bad joke for Bush to say, “Iraqi forces are earning the trust of their countrymen.”

Not the Sunnis they aren’t.

Aware of the political pressure at home, Bush said that “as the Iraqi forces gain experience and the political progress advances, we will be able to decrease our troop levels in Iraq without losing our capability to defeat the terrorists.”

But he offered no clue as to how many of the 160,000 U.S. troops he might withdraw. And he mocked the idea of a timetable for total withdrawal, which is the last thing on his mind, though leading Shiite groups—and a majority of Americans—are in favor of it.

He believes that prevailing in Iraq is answering “history’s call,” he said, and he believes he’s answering God’s call, too. (“History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty,” he said in his 2005 Inaugural Address.)

It is Bush the missionary who will not leave Iraq, for to do so, in his mind, would be to go against God’s will.

And like Cheney and Rumsfeld, Bush covets long-term military bases in Iraq and control of Iraqi oil. These were among the ulterior purposes for the war in the first place.

Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush also fear that leaving Iraq would embolden Al Qaeda. Yet Al Qaeda relishes the Iraq War, and recognizes that it boosts recruiting. If the United States were to pull out of Iraq, Al Qaeda would likely not be strong enough to wrest control of the country from Shiites, Kurds, and those Sunnis who are in league with it only until U.S. troops leave. Having Iraqis expel Zarqawi’s forces would do more to damage Al Qaeda than having the United States engage in a futile effort to stamp out the last terrorist in the land.

Delusions, wishful thinking, and stubbornness do not amount to a plan for victory.

They amount to a plan for quagmire.