[Texgreen] "Choosing victory"

[Roger Baker]

<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL22Ak01.html>

A risky throw of the dice for Bush
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - As official Washington breaks for the two-week Christmas- 
New Year's hiatus, it knows that the No 1 issue it will face on its  
return in early January is the White House's apparent "urge to surge"  
as many as 50,000 new troops into Iraq for up to two years in a last- 
ditch effort to claim what President George W Bush insists on calling  
"victory".

The plan, which was presented to Bush last week in a meeting with  
five national-defense specialists, including two associates of
the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is designed  
to focus US military efforts on providing "security" for average  
Iraqi citizens against both the Sunni insurgency and Shi'ite militias  
that have, in the report's words, made Baghdad the "center of gravity  
of this conflict".

Drafted hastily - it currently exists only as a PowerPoint  
presentation - by its two main authors, AEI fellow Frederick Kagan  
and the former vice chief of staff of the US Army, General Jack  
Keane, as an alternative to the report of the bipartisan Iraq Study  
Group (ISG) headed by former secretary of state James Baker and  
former congressman Lee Hamilton, it is called "Choosing Victory: A  
Plan for Success in Iraq".

The title is apparently chosen deliberately to counter one of the  
ISG's core messages: that there is "no magic bullet" - least of all a  
military one - that can save what most analysts in Washington believe  
is the biggest US foreign-policy debacle since at least the Vietnam War.

"Alone among proposals for Iraq, the new Keane-Kagan strategy has a  
chance to succeed," declared this week's Weekly Standard, which, like  
the AEI fellows involved in the "Victory" project, was a major  
champion for going to war in Iraq.

Indeed, the provenance of the plan - aside from Keane and two other  
senior retired military officers, a majority its 17 contributors are  
AEI fellows - has fed suspicions that it represents one final effort  
by neo-conservatives to convince the president that, by "doubling  
down" on his gamble on Iraq, he can still leave the table a winner  
and "transform" the entire Middle East.

While Bush has not explicitly endorsed the concept, he noted at his  
year-end White House press conference on Wednesday that he was open  
to the idea. Vice President Dick Cheney's office, which is closely  
tied to AEI, is known to support it strongly.

"According to all the talk in Washington, the 'plan' whipped up by  
AEI's Fred Kagan is likely to be mostly implemented by President Bush  
when he stops stalling about his policy in Iraq," said Pat Lang, the  
former chief Middle East analyst at the Pentagon's Defense  
Intelligence Agency, who has warned that, if implemented, it would  
likely lead to "Stalingrad on the Tigris".

"A 'surge' of the size possible under current constraints on US  
forces will not turn the tide in the guerrilla war," warned Lang, who  
noted, along with many other experts in the past month, that the  
reinforcement of thousands of US troops in Baghdad since last summer  
had actually increased the violence there.

"Those who believe still more troops will bring 'victory' are living  
in a dangerous dream world and need to wake up," he added, conceding,  
however, that it may appeal to Bush for that very reason. "He wants  
to redeem his 'freedom agenda', restore momentum to his plans, and in  
his mind this might 'clear up' Iraq so that he could move on to Iran."

Even if Bush supports the plan, however, his much-weakened political  
position in the wake of last month's mid-term elections, in which  
Democrats won control of both houses of Congress, makes it highly  
unlikely that he could muster the kind of support - both among  
lawmakers and the uniformed military - he would need to deploy the  
number of troops for which the plans calls.

While the current front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential  
nomination, Senator John McCain, supports the plan - as does the  
Democrats' most prominent neo-conservative, Senator Joseph Lieberman  
- some key Republicans, including Senators Gordon Smith and Norm  
Coleman, who until now have strongly backed Bush's Iraq policy, have  
come out in opposition.

They are certain to be bolstered by doubts expressed on Sunday by  
former secretary of state Colin Powell, who, since his retirement two  
years ago, has been extremely reluctant to voice any criticism of Bush.

A former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Powell told CBS News  
that he was "not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad  
for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this  
civil war, will work".

The current theater commanders, including the outgoing head of the US  
Central Command, General John Abizaid, and the senior officer in  
Iraq, General George Casey, have also argued that more troops are  
likely to increase, rather than reduce, the violence.

Abizaid, an Arab speaker with an advanced degree in Middle East  
studies from Harvard University, has all but explicitly endorsed the  
main recommendations of the ISG, particularly its emphasis on gaining  
the cooperation of all of Iraq's neighbors in stabilizing the country.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff are also reportedly skeptical of the plan,  
with the army chief of staff, General Peter Schoomaker, warning  
Congress this month that even at the current rate of deployment - not  
to mention increased troop levels, let alone those recommended by the  
"Victory" plan - "we will break the [army's] active component".

In addition to conveying their views directly to Bush's new Pentagon  
chief Robert Gates, those same skeptics among the active-duty and  
retired military officers will almost certainly be among the first  
witnesses called to testify before key congressional panels beginning  
next month as the newly empowered Democrats take control of the  
legislative agenda for the first time in 12 years.

While the incoming Senate majority leader Harry Reid said last  
weekend that he could abide a modest increase in US troop strength in  
Baghdad for a few months to see if they could reduce the violence,  
other key senators, including the front-runner for the party's 2008  
presidential nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton, said this week she  
would not support even a short-term deployment. Meanwhile, the top  
Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives issued  
statements opposing any "surge".

Still, neo-conservatives remain confident. "Because this plan offers  
a credible prospect of winning in Iraq," said this week's Standard,  
"moderate Democrats and queasy Republicans, the White House thinks,  
will be inclined to stand back and let Bush give it a shot."