Source: Australian Financial Review
US President George Bush held his second full-scale press conference in a matter of weeks on Wednesday local time, the first time he has done this in his 51/2 years in office.
Let's be clear. Bush does not like subjecting himself to open, unscripted press conferences. He would not have gone back to the well again this month if he had not felt compelled to do so.
What's going on? Bush's motivation was twofold. First, he aimed to make use of the presidential bully pulpit to bolster the argument for remaining steadfast in Iraq, and second, he wanted to use his ability to get people's attention to talk up Republican prospects in mid-term elections on November 7.
Bush did a serviceable job, but if you stand back and think about the message it becomes much less compelling - and much more self-serving.
He might have been intent on sounding like Harry Truman rallying support during the Korean war, but he ended up reminding people of Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam.
What the President was about was buying time for a failed policy in Iraq ahead of congressional elections in two weeks time in which Republican candidates risk paying a heavy price for his mistakes.
Bush is like the character Pyle in Graham Greene's Vietnam war era The Quiet American, "impregnably armoured by his good intentions and his ignorance," as the military historian and war critic Andrew Bacevich pointed out in a recent column. Half a world away, Prime Minister John Howard was engaged in a similar buying-time exercise on Iraq, of which more in a moment.
Bush began with a 15-minute statement that acknowledged the need for greater flexibility in dealing with a determined enemy.
But beyond those bromides there was nothing to suggest - nothing - the United States has a workable plan to extricate itself from the mess it has created.
Let's not dissemble. Iraq is engaged in a vicious sectarian conflict that in all likelihood will get worse before it gets better.
It reminds me of the civil war in Lebanon in the 1980s, or worse, Somalia at its most anarchic. Lebanon's brutal civil conflict took 15 years to play itself out and only became amenable to a resolution after the combatants had exhausted themselves in an orgy of bloodletting that left few, if any, communities unscarred. Iraq's militias and insurgent armies are a long way from exhaustion, and are, of course, energised every single day by the presence of an American occupation force.
The US, with Australia tagging along behind, finds itself caught in the midst of this conflict. There is no other way to describe the circumstances in which the US and its allies are obliged to operate.
When you hear Bush talking about benchmarks to bring closer an end to the occupation, this is a chimera. US strategy is based on asking an Iraqi government - whose writ does not extend beyond a heavily fortified "green zone" in the centre of Baghdad - to achieve outcomes that are far beyond its reach.
In other words, US policy is predicated on a willfully false premise: An Iraqi government that has shown no ability or resolve whatsoever to disarm militias and assert its own control is being given a "timetable" to perform such tasks, never mind that as recently as this summer Bush himself was disavowing any talk of such benchmarks or timetables.
This is a farce and the sooner this is recognised for what it is the more chance there is of a solution emerging that has some chance of success.
"If I did not think our mission in Iraq was vital to America's security, I would bring our troops home tomorrow," Bush said yesterday.
"I met too many wives and husbands who have lost their partners in life, too many children who won't ever see their mum and dad again. "I owe it to them and to the families who still have loved ones in harm's way to ensure that their sacrifices are not in vain."
Think about that statement for a moment. One way of seeing it is that Bush is arguing it is necessary to risk more casualties in some sort of open-ended commitment to a failing enterprise to establish democracy in Iraq in order to honour the sacrifice of those who have paid the ultimate price.
The question becomes for Bush, no less than it does for Howard and other members of the pro-war chorus in Australia, how many more young people need to die - or be maimed - for a mistake? Queensland senator Russell Trood has done the national debate a service by adding his voice to misgivings about Australia's presence in Iraq, contributing not to a solution but to further exacerbating problems there. Trood's analysis is correct.
The question becomes what to do about a situation that is becoming untenable. Howard's reaction was predictable when asked about Trood's remarks, and the issue of whether Australia should draw down its forces. He sought to frame his response in the context of Australia's alliance obligations to the US since this provides the most fertile opportunity for the exercise of wedge politics. People, presumably meaning the Labor Party, who were talking about a timetable for withdrawal, had "taken leave of their senses," Howard said.
No responsible individual, as far as I know, including some of the harshest critics of the war, is advocating an immediate withdrawal.
Howard should be aware of the following: America may look very different in two weeks time if there is a shift in control of the US Congress.
He should not underestimate the deep, pulsating anger that exists among an increasing number of Americans about a mistaken enterprise in Iraq. Iraq is destroying the Bush presidency.
Howard, whose prime ministership has been tainted by his association with the Iraq mess, would be wise to factor this in to his own calculations.