'Surge' or not, Bush's plan is a longshot

On one major point regarding Iraq, President Bush and his critics in Congress are in agreement: It is time for the Iraqi government to step up, take responsibility for the nation's security and offer its people the tools to make economic progress.

But as Bush's major policy speech on Iraq and the critics' reaction to it Wednesday night demonstrated, there's a huge political rift regarding how to get Iraq to make that step. The president announced his plan to send 20,000 more U.S. troops to the Baghdad area at least temporarily to help quell sectarian violence, hopefully giving the Iraqis the chance to create some political and economic stability. Bush added a warning to Iraq that "America's commitment is not open-ended."

Reacting to the prime-time televised speech outlining the president's "new way forward" on Iraq, Bush's opponents called his plan an "escalation" and said that, as some military have suggested, announcing a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops to begin in the next few months would force Iraqis to face reality and save their own society from chaos.

These two starkly different approaches to Iraq will dominate debate in the coming weeks not only in Congress, which will look at funding and other related matters, but in the media, public forums and even family dinner tables across the country. It will be a complex debate, but one that deserves thoughtful attention and creative thinking.

Earlier Wednesday, as Bush prepared for his speech, his White House staff was busy spinning the plan’s details for the media. White House spokesman Tony Snow, in a conference call with a several newspapers' editorial boards (including the Enquirer's), described the major points Bush wanted to get across – and took issue with the labeling of his 20,000-troop plan as a “surge” strategy.

“ ‘Surge’ didn’t come from us,” Snow said. “(The president’s) not going to use the word ‘surge.’ That makes it sound like rush hour. It’s not like there’s suddenly 20,000 more troops in Iraq.”

It was part of a delicate dance by Snow, and later by Bush in his speech – forced to acknowledge that the old U.S. strategy in Iraq has been an abject failure, but determined to deflect growing criticism of the new strategy, which is nowhere near the fundamental change many Americans have been demanding as the situation in Iraq has appeared to spin out of control.

Many of the points the White House was trying to make are subtle, intangible ones, likely to be lost on the public. Reaction from the spinmeisters on all sides Wednesday night seemed almost to confuse the issue further, although there was wide support for a few points in Bush's plan -- notably a more focused counterinsurgency strategy inspired by the brilliant work of Gen. David Petraeus, who is poised to become the top U.S. military commander in Iraq.

But here’s the gist of the Bush arguments:

-- The projected gradual, targeted deployment of about 20,000 additional U.S. troops in and around Baghdad is part of a plan to reorganize the city into nine “security zones” and create a new “confidence-building” military presence on the streets – something that almost sounds like what Cincinnatians have come to know as “community-oriented policing,” but on a bigger, far more dangerous scale. And as Baghdad goes, so goes Iraq, the theory holds. Snow noted that 80 percent of sectarian violence in Iraq occurs within 30 miles of Baghdad, and half of the nation’s 18 provinces average fewer than one violent incident a day. As for the notion that 20,000 troops is too little, too late, Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., pointed out that this number will double the U.S. combat strength in Baghdad.

-- More U.S. troops are just part of the equation, the White House said. Iraq has pledged a quick increase in its forces, including one additional brigade (about 4,000 troops) around Baghdad by Feb. 1 and two more brigades by Feb. 15. More U.S. personnel will be embedded with Iraqi units, a U.S. commanders will have a freer hand to go after insurgents in neighborhoods where Iraqi politicians were previously able to veto military action. Tribes in Anbar province will take the lead in fighting al-Qaida forces there. And the U.S. is ramping up diplomatic efforts, trying to get regional players such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to back Iraq’s government and discourage mischief by Iran and Syria.

-- But while many Americans, among them Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., want the new strategy to keep U.S. troops out of harm’s way, Snow said the way the new troops will be deployed in Baghdad will likely lead to greater risk and more casualties. Troops will be on the streets after dark, instead of retiring to their barracks. “In the short run, it is going to make the situation more violent because you’re going right into the areas where the bad guys are and you’re going to fight them,” Snow said.

-- The bottom line for U.S. taxpayers: Bush is asking for $5.6 billion for the extra troops, $414 million for Iraq reconstruction, $400 million for a “quick response” fund, and $350 million for a military commanders’ fund. The latter two requests look like mechanisms to stash extra money to tap in case things go sour. But the White House was quick to claim that the bulk of the new money going into the Iraq effort will come from the Iraqis themselves and their regional neighbors. Iraq is tapping $10 billion of its oil-derived $11.5 billion surplus for reconstruction. "The American public wants to see Iraqis ponying up more money,” Snow acknowledged.

The idea is to push the fledgling Iraqi government to create jobs and economic opportunity after areas are made secure. As Bush’s speech put it: “Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhood and communities.” That’s a very tall order.

The challenge Bush’s “new way forward” faces is to create conditions in which ordinary Iraqis will see they have more to gain by signing on with Iraq’s multiethnic coalition government instead of taking sides in the sectarian strife.

That seems like a real longshot right now, and the U.S. public’s apparent skepticism toward Bush’s plan is well-founded. If it somehow works, Bush’s counterinuitive, non-surge “surge” may yet prove a smart shift in strategy. But don’t hold your breath.