Bush appears ready to continue the surge for another six months or so, and the Democrats lack the votes to check him.
From TIME:
It is a measure of how vaporous the ground truths in Iraq have become that George W. Bush had to sneak into the country he conquered. Extra security was needed to proclaim that Iraq was more secure, the surge was working and the country was worth more American blood and treasure.
Bush made the trip in part to pressure a reluctant Congress to permit his 30,000-troop surge, announced in January, to continue a while longer. And yet it was Bush who, during his brief visit to Anbar, hinted openly that troop withdrawals might begin soon.
Americans sense intuitively that Iraq has a way of reducing what was once solid and certain into sand. Lawmakers from both parties expected September to be a month of reckoning for the President's Iraq policy — a stop-or-go moment when the U.S. would decide whether to continue the surge or begin an inevitable pullback. But even before Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker utter a word to Congress, that debate looks almost moot. Bush appears ready to continue the surge for another six months or so, and the Democrats lack the votes to check him. So what will unfold instead in Washington this month is not a debate about the surge but the beginning of a debate about what comes after: How long will the U.S. be in Iraq? (Probably a decade, possibly more.) How many troops will be needed? (Probably 130,000 to start, hopefully less.) What will the mission be after the surge? (Get in line — it's anyone's guess.) Will the Iraqis get their act together? (Not soon, as things stand now.)
The U.S. marched blindly into Iraq, dreaming of Arab democracy, only to create a sinkhole of regional instability. In a pair of epic fiascos, Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary at the time, okayed an invasion force that was probably too small by half — and then agreed with U.S. envoy L. Paul Bremer to cashier the entire Iraqi army two months later.
It is a measure of how vaporous the ground truths in Iraq have become that George W. Bush had to sneak into the country he conquered. Extra security was needed to proclaim that Iraq was more secure, the surge was working and the country was worth more American blood and treasure.
Bush made the trip in part to pressure a reluctant Congress to permit his 30,000-troop surge, announced in January, to continue a while longer. And yet it was Bush who, during his brief visit to Anbar, hinted openly that troop withdrawals might begin soon.
Americans sense intuitively that Iraq has a way of reducing what was once solid and certain into sand. Lawmakers from both parties expected September to be a month of reckoning for the President's Iraq policy — a stop-or-go moment when the U.S. would decide whether to continue the surge or begin an inevitable pullback. But even before Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker utter a word to Congress, that debate looks almost moot. Bush appears ready to continue the surge for another six months or so, and the Democrats lack the votes to check him. So what will unfold instead in Washington this month is not a debate about the surge but the beginning of a debate about what comes after: How long will the U.S. be in Iraq? (Probably a decade, possibly more.) How many troops will be needed? (Probably 130,000 to start, hopefully less.) What will the mission be after the surge? (Get in line — it's anyone's guess.) Will the Iraqis get their act together? (Not soon, as things stand now.)
The U.S. marched blindly into Iraq, dreaming of Arab democracy, only to create a sinkhole of regional instability. In a pair of epic fiascos, Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary at the time, okayed an invasion force that was probably too small by half — and then agreed with U.S. envoy L. Paul Bremer to cashier the entire Iraqi army two months later.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 11:23 AM
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