THE 'SURGE'
Move is designed to save the Bush presidency
By David A. Lake
January 10, 2007
The plan to surge 20,000 or more U.S. troops to Iraq, likely to be announced tonight, may be a winning strategy for George W. Bush, but not for the United States. It merely forestalls the inescapable day of reckoning for Americans.
The president is betting that a surge will reduce troop casualties low enough that he can ride out the war until the next election. The mess would then become someone else's problem – with the American public continuing to shoulder the burden.
Bolstering American troops in Iraq by up to five additional divisions of soldiers is likely to suppress the current out-of-control violence in Baghdad, at least temporarily. Just as more police on the street deters crime, more troops on the ground would cause the violence in Baghdad to ebb. Knowing that American troops are stronger, insurgents would divert attacks to areas of the country that are still unprotected. Many others would simply go underground and wait until the surge recedes, as it inevitably must. Baghdad would gain the appearance of calm and success, even though none of the underlying issues driving the violence will have been addressed.
The result will be called a victory by Bush and his champions, but it will last only so long as does the surge. With fewer American casualties, the pressure now building on the Bush administration to withdraw will be lifted. Enjoying apparent success, and with a low level of continuing casualties, President Bush will maintain troops in Iraq through the 2008 election.
At this point, the Bush administration will have “won†the Iraq war. By passing off to his successor an Iraq that is not aflame, Bush can claim that any future conflagration – which there will certainly be – was not his fault. When the next president actually does begin to withdraw troops from Iraq, the renewed violence would be because he or she deviated from the wise course set by President Bush. As in his failed oil business and sports franchise, Bush comes out clean no matter what.
Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, masked only partially by the continuing presence of U.S. troops. The trust between Shiites and Sunnis necessary for a stable state has completely eroded. It cannot be rebuilt overnight or even in the months before the next U.S. election. The choices we confront today are between a civil war fought out sooner or later, and one with American troops caught in the crossfire or not. Unfortunately, a surge of troops will not alter this grim reality.
There is no guarantee that the Iraq Study Group strategy of forcing the Iraqi government to “stand up†by threatening to withdraw American forces will work. But the only possible winner from a surge is Bush and his legacy.
We cannot count on the Democrats to rein in the administration. They should force the president through hearings to justify the surge and explain how it will ultimately succeed, as new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appears poised to do. The Democrats will pose hard questions for which there will be few good answers. But as commander in chief, Bush has tremendous leeway on the deployment of forces. To prevent the surge, or call the soldiers home earlier than the president wants, requires that the Democrats cut funding for the troops, which they will not be politically foolish enough to do. One can only imagine the field day the administration would have tarring the Democrats as unwilling to provide the means necessary to protect the lives of our men and women in harm's way.
Hopefully, exposing the president's cynical manipulation of our troops for his own narrow political gain and legacy will shame him into following the exit strategy outlined in the Baker-Hamilton report. The surge is a plan to save the Bush presidency, not a strategy that serves America's interests.
Lake is a professor of political science at the University of California San Diego. He is the author of “Entangling Relations: American Foreign Policy in its Century.â€
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