I've seen a lot of discussion about Bush's liability accounting after the past few weeks. Is it still just the economy, stupid, is it Clarke's allegations not being fully undone?
Looking forward, I'll stipulate partly to both:
- ) The economy will improve somewhat by late summer, but the negative impact won't be fully undone and Bush won't be winning the race on economic merits. Bush will lose more votes than he gains as a result of his minimal focus on the economy.
- ) The gist of Dick Clarke's allegations, that the administration's senior leadership took their eye of the counterterrorist ball, will still linger but it will never wholly stick to Bush. Even if Americans conclude that the dots were all on the page, only a small minority is going to conclude the administration was negligent in not connecting them (or causing others to effectively work towards their connection).
That said, the fluctuating momentum in Iraq has a much stronger likelihood of being the wedge issue come November.
First off, if there is a June 30 handover, we'll be basically throwing in the towel. As things sit right now, a June 30 transition is a dimmer prospect than getting tapped as defense counsel for Scott Peterson.
- The current governing council looks ripe for implosion. About one quarter of it's members have resigned in the last week.
- The rebuilt Iraqi civil defense force is AWOL in the South, subordinating out in Sadr City and refusing to fight in Fallujah.
- The seeds of an Iraqi intifada have been sown. It remains to be seen if the administration or Sadr are closer to the truth: is this a popular uprising, a fringe element or something in between? Most likely its something in between, how close to one or the other is what matters.
The factors suggesting Iraq is descending into a full-blown insurgency seem to be lining up. If the perfect storm forms and Sunni and Shia forces are simultaneously in revolt across Iraq, we're going to be faced with three unpalatable options:
- Moderate force response only slightly, continue to fight assymetrically with limited/stretched forces.
- Amplify force response significantly, revert to tactical air campaigns, redouble forces in-country.
- Withdraw or recede to base-focused presence. Similar to Afghanistan (and also the Soviets experience there as well), concede secondary regions while occupying Baghdad.
Neither of these options are going to facilitate a successful transition at June 30. In fact, if we end up down this road, the likelihood of a successful transition on the path to an open society at any point in the future seems extremely low.
Most likely we amplify force. The conflict could potentially open back up on a scale surpassing that of the initial March/April 2003 hostilities.
Across the world, we're going to look a lot like Israel when the IDF goes rolling through Gaza or Jenin. Right, wrong or otherwise, it's not going to play well in the global media. Rocks vs bullets never tends to make the guy with the gun overly sympathetic character no matter what the back story looks like.
If things continue to progress in the direction the last two weeks in Iraq suggests, the November election will be about one thing and one thing only: what are we doing in the future in Iraq.
For my money, we have to double down, prepare for whatever needs to be done and ride this thing through to the other side. If we don't, the long-term consequences dwarf the dire near term results.
We should not be in this situation, but these are the cards the administration dealt itself. Now we need to play out the hand. The other day, someone said "once you drive your car off the cliff, there's not much you can do to affect the outcome." Good point.
Here's a wrinkle. If Iraq flares back up in an unimaginable way, and the debate between Bush and Kerry focuses on forward looking strategies for the effort there, will Kerry take the politically expedient way out and change his stance to full withdrawal? If Kerry campaigns based upon disengaging from Iraq (without undoing the mess we made), then he almost becomes a less responsible choice than Bush on that issue alone.
A truly frightening thought indeed.