For All the Marbles
The year was 1981, and President Ronald Reagan was taking a big risk-arguably staking his legacy, his conservative credentials, and his nation's economy on cutting taxes. At the time, Howard Baker, the president's key man in the Senate, dubbed it "a riverboat gamble," and he was right. It was a dangerous move-for better or worse-that defined Reagan, and his party, as tax cutters. To even mention raising taxes, as Bush 41 later found out, became a GOP heresy toxic enough to destroy a political career.
Last week, President Bush announced a major tactical shift in the Iraq war. "It's more than a risk; it's a riverboat gamble," declared Leon Panetta, a Democratic member of the Iraq Study Group. This gamble, however, makes Reagan's leap as a tax cutter look puny by comparison. Bucking the advice of generals, of many in his own party, of Democrats, of the bipartisan Iraq Study group, the president stood almost alone, announcing the escalation of a war the American public emphatically wants to end. While he took responsibility for his mistakes in Iraq-even admitting there had not been enough troops in Baghdad to control the chaos-he decided that leaving would result in only more American casualties.
Not since Richard Nixon sent American troops into Cambodia has a president taken such a gamble with an unpopular war. Bush talked to just about everybody, but in the end, he listened to himself. Give him this much: If Bush wanted to take a politically expedient route, this would not be it. And he has personalized his decision, too. "Where mistakes have been made," the president said, "the responsibility rests with me." There is a certain sense of lonely isolation in that declaration, and with good reason.
Empty threat. But what's so puzzling is just how the president came to adopt thiscourse of action-embracing a plan that relies heavily on the actions of the very same group that has disappointed over and over again in the past: the Iraqi government. Overriding the concerns of both the public and the policymakers, Bush is giving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki one last chance-without specifying what will happen if he fails. "America's commitment is not open-ended," the president says. But it sure looks like an empty threat: What exactly has to happen (or not happen) for Bush to call the troops home? We don't know. All we know is that the president proposed adding more soldiers, for now. How, when, and if they will leave remains a mystery.
The last-chance surge strategy has Iraq experts scratching their heads. Panetta told me that the Iraq Study Group, in all of its interviews-in Washington and in Baghdad-never heard any enthusiasm for a troop surge. "There was not one general that we talked to that supported a troop surge," he says. "They argued it would only produce a temporary result." Why? "Unless the Iraqis get their act together, unless the Iraqi Army is better trained and equipped, and unless the Iraqi government reconciles its political differences, we will never achieve any kind of permanent change." To trust Maliki to change things was a leap of faith the study group declined to take. "We've had surges in the past," adds Panetta. "And the Iraqi Army and police did not pick up on their responsibilities." Indeed, Panetta says, a surge is simply counterproductive "and will undermine the ability of pushing the Iraqis to where they have to go because they will think we will be there to bail them out."
advertisement
