Quietly, US strategy in Iraq shifting
A report on the 'surge' could help determine momentum.
from the July 9, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Many observers expect the efforts before Congress recesses in August to merely "put the writing on the wall" in anticipation of testimony in September from Gen. David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador in Baghdad. The two are to give an assessment of the force buildup, but some analysts expect it will be more like a final report card.
"When Petraeus comes in September, he'll say the tactics of the 'surge' are the right ones and they would work, but there's no consensus behind the time and number of people needed to make it work," says Mr. Gvosdev. "And that will be particularly true in the absence of any real progress from the Iraqi government."
What seems to worry some congressional leaders like Lugar and even some administration officials is that sticking too long to a doomed strategy could create the political conditions for a full and precipitous withdrawal from Iraq – something they believe would be disastrous for US interests in the Middle East.
"Basically what you have are the grown-ups in the administration like Gates saying, 'We have to come up with something for the long term, something that achieves broad-based support, because if we don't, the people who say we have to get out now will prevail, and we don't want that,' " says Lawrence Korb, a former Defense Department official now at the Center for American Progress in Washington.
Forging a consensus around a long-term strategy for the global fight against Islamist terrorism would give Gates – not the closest administration insider – a sense of having contributed a significant accomplishment, some Washington insiders say. But they also suggest he could leave the administration if he concluded the wrong road were being followed for too long.
Lugar said in a television interview earlier this month that as president, Bush would probably be able to stick to the "surge" strategy through the end of his term if he chose to. But he added that he thought Bush would grasp the political realities and begin charting a new course.
Indeed, on the prosaic political level, the pressures of the 2008 election extend beyond the White House race to congressional contests. Analysts note that the terms are up in 2008 for some of the Republicans pressuring Bush, including Senator Domeneci and Warner. "They are beginning to look beyond the president to the horizon after Bush, and they may see that the political cost of sticking with his policy is too high," says Gvosdev.
But beyond the political considerations, the juxtaposition of the "three worst months of the war for American casualties" with the failure of the Iraqi government to move the country toward reconciliation has already spelled the current strategy's failure in the eyes of too many Americans, Mr. Korb says.
The impending interim strategy review and funding votes, Korb says, "are simply the beginning of the end."
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