Post Scripts: Iraqi mess

More bad news out of Washington last week. President Bush told his Iraq war chief, General David Petraeus, that "he can have all the time he needs." Most of us know what that really means. It means that the general, like the government of Iraq, should feel no pressure to figure a way out of the mess we’re in there. It means that even after 20,000 troops come home there will still be nearly 140,000 troops still fighting there with absolutely no plan for further withdrawals and, worst of all, no plan to achieve even a shred of victory.

It means, as many of us with war experience understand, Mr. Bush has thought that the only real strategy for Iraq is to delay decisions and hand this sorry mess to his successor in the White House. Bush is giving himself all the time he needs to just walk away from the biggest strategic blunders in U.S. History.

General Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, our ambassador to Baghdad, did not try to hide any of that in their "Stay the Course" tour. Of course we got the obligatory claims of military and political progress but with a lot less BS about staying the course and those military charts assessing performance on political benchmarks.

When members of Congress pressed him to explain what would have to happen on the ground for him to press for further withdrawals, the general simply did not answer. He certainly isn’t getting any pressure to do anything special from President Bush who knows nothing about war. Bush is a short-timer anyway so why should he worry?

Whoever wins the presidency will not have the same luxury. He will have to start quickly to end the war. Even Senator McCain must realize that U.S. forces cannot sustain this pace forever. A few days ago the New York Times reported that battlefield tours have so debilitated our troops that Army leaders fear for their mental health. In the two wars I was in they called it "battle fatigue."

Whoever is our next president will face a big, big problem. He or she must plan for an orderly withdrawal. The demand for troops is exceeding our supply. President Bush has already cut combat tours in Iraq from 15 to 12 months. The faltering U.S. economy cannot afford this never-ending war. Bush’s description of his latest "emergency" spending request as a "reasonable" $108 billion proves just how out of touch he is with fiscal reality.

The fight against Al Qaeda is the big battle for this generation but Bush’s claim that Iraq is the main front is wrong. That is Afghanistan, and the U.S. is in danger of losing because Bush’s failed adventure in Iraq is eating up the Pentagon’s resources. Bush will not propose an exit strategy but there are things he could do to give his successor a better chance containing the "mess" after U.S. troops leave.

The so-called "surge was intended to give Iraqi politicians room to make needed political reforms. Few decisions on critical reforms have not been touched. The recent performance in Washington merely confirms what the Iraqis knew: the president is just playing out his string. Bush might have more luck telling Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki the truth: if the Democrats win in November, the days of enabling will certainly be over.

The days of enabling will be over for sure and that’s likely to happen even if the Republicans hold on to the White House. If they know the Americans will not be there to guarantee their survival, Iraq’s leaders might well be in the mood to compromise. We’ll just wait and see!