The controversy over Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s statement that the war in Iraq is “lost” is an exercise in capital Kabuki.
Everyone in Washington knows that Reid was speaking the truth. The war in Iraq is indeed lost. The war the politicians are fighting now is over who takes the blame for the loss.
By rights it should be President Bush. He started the war. He got everything he asked for from a compliant Republican Congress. He did it his way, and he failed, colossally. The Iraq adventure has damaged U.S. standing, U.S. interests, U.S. allies and the U.S.’s struggle with Al-Qaeda. It has killed and maimed thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. It is a global train wreck, today, now, whatever happens in the budget battle on Capitol Hill.
Politicians have been reluctant to state, forthrightly, how futile the situation has become; they worry about being framed as undermining morale in the field — just as Reid is now being charged. But the endgame of the Bush administration is forcing some bluntness on the Beltway.
Everything that Bush and his people do between now and 2008 needs to be understood through the lens of their “run out the clock” strategy. The attorney purge scandal, for instance, happened as part of an effort to polish up the resumes of “loyal Bushies” before lame-duckness sets in.
In response to the clear verdict of the 2006 election rejecting the war Bush chose to escalate the conflict instead, with one goal in mind: keep total defeat at bay, prevent a humiliating-retreat fiasco for two more years, then hand the hot potato off to his successor. Let the helicopters lift off from the Green Zone roofs any time after Jan. 20, 2009, just not on my watch, Bush wants to be able to say — no matter how many more soldiers and civilians have to die so he can say it.
That’s why Reid is saying the war is already lost. And why it’s important that he’s saying it today, with nearly two years still left of the Bush presidency. The Bush White House never takes responsibility for anything; the bad stuff was always someone else’ fault. (Remember the ludicrous argument that the Bush team started during its first administration about who was to blame for the recession that mired the country for Bush’s first few years: “It had already begun when we took office!” was the administration dodge.) If we’re honest that the war is already lost, and that everything we do henceforth is about cleaning up the mess, it’s that much harder for Bush and Cheney to turn around and somehow lay blame for the war’s disastrous conclusion at the feet of the Democrats who are trying to wind it down.
That’s the importance of Reid’s statement about the war: It’s about responsibility. President Bush started the war; President Bush lost the war. And he did both in a cloud of lies. Everything else is a footnote.
[tags]iraq, iraq war, harry reid, president bush[/tags]
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