Few options for Bush

Few options for Bush
April 16 2004
PV Vivekanand

US PRESIDENT George W Bush faces the most crucial dilemma of his politcal career in handling the Iraq crisis. Notwithstanding the brave front he is putting up, he has no assurance that the US could win the war in Iraq. His options are limited and he has no exit strategy since such a course of events was never foreseen by his hardline camp which orchestrated the invasion and occupaton of Iraq. With mounting American casualties in Iraq and revelations of deception in Washington over the Sept.11 attacks and the war against Iraq, Bush's Democratic challenger John Kerry seems already halfway through to the White House in November.

Bush could not use the UN as a smokescreen to legitimise the US dominance of Iraq since the world body demands transparency and the final say in how to democratise Iraq in a manner acceptable to the international community. Giving in to the UN demand will mean nothing but giving up the American long-term objectives of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Bush could pump in more military forces and seek to suppress Iraqi resistance but it would only inflame Iraqi passions and drag his military into a prolonged war of attrition that would undermine all hopes of a contained situation where Washington could pursue its "strategic" objectives in the Middle East.
If anything, brutal suppression of Iraqi resistance to the US-led occupation would pull the US deeper into the quagmire and ignite more anti-American sentiments not only in Iraq but elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Bush has acknowledged that the Iraq crisis has turned to be the decisive issue in his bid for re-election in November. However, he has rejected suggestions that Iraq is becoming another Vietnam but that he is ready to send more American soldiers to Iraq to put down Iraqi resistance to the US-led occupation of that country.
However, the crisis in Iraq is fast becoming an American battle to avert defeat rather than an effort to "civilise" and "democratise" Iraq as the Bush administration is claiming.
Bush has several options in Iraq — but none better or worse than the other.
What is at stake for Bush in Iraq is not only his re-election prospects but also the perceived American invincibility and admitting defeat there would seal his departure from active politics.
Bush has to deliver on his promise to set up a pro-Western, democratic Iraq. He could not afford to be forced into leaving Iraq since that would signal the end of America's newfound global dominance.
American commentators are asking whether Bush has any assurance that he would win the war. He might be able to fight off Iraqi querrillas but it is turning out to be a full-time job for his miltary and allies in Iraq. Without security, no elections could be held in Iraq, and without elections, there will be no democracy.
As former presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan puts it:
"President Bush faces three options. He can continue to draw down troops and transfer power to the Iraq Governing Council on June 30, and risk a collapse in chaos or civil war. He can hold to present US force levels and accept a war of attrition of indefinite duration, a war on which his countrymen have begun to sour.
"Or he can send in more troops and unleash US power to crush all resistance, while declaring our resolve to "pay any price" and fight on to victory, even if it takes two, five or 10 years. The problem with playing Churchill is that, as in Vietnam, it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
"The incidence of attacks on our troops, aid workers and Iraqi allies is rising. The more fiercely we fight back, the higher the casualties we inflict on insurgent and civilian alike, and the greater the hostility grows to our war and our presence. "Indeed, if our occupation itself is the cause of the insurgency, how do we win the war by extending and deepening it?"

Uncompromising stand

The best reference to Bush's current uncompromising position that he had done the right thing before and after the Sept.11, 2001 attacks and the war against Afghanistan and Iraq came in a combination speech and news conference at the White House on Tuesday.
He did not even acknowledge that the crises in both Afghanistan and Iraq were serious and hence the question of offering new ideas to solve them did not arise at all.
Everything he said was a reiteration of known positions and a deliberate attempt at keeping the focus away from the key issues at stake and trying to reinforce the image that his administration did nothing wrong in any aspect.
Throughout the encounter with the press, Bush maintained that he was determined to "win" the war in Iraq and was confident that he would have presidential mandate renewed in November.
He faced tough questions from the media about whether he felt he had made "mistakes" in handling the terror threat to the US, perceived and otherwise, prior to and after Sept.11, whether he was right in handling Afghanistan the way he did and whether the coalition was wavering in the face of the crisis in Iraq.
Predictably, he offered no apology for the government's failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks or find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq despite that it was the very reason that he cited as justification for the war that ousted Saddam Hussein and led to the US military occupation of that country.

Wobbling explanations

Some Americans might have bought some of his explanations, reaffirmations of known positions and assertions that his administration had adopted a straight-forward approach to everything. But, as commentators indicate, not many Americans were bought by his words since the facts on the ground in Iraq and elsewhere are different from the way he portrayed them.
For one thing, he insisted that the US was determined to bring democracy to Iraq and let Iraqis run their country from July 1.
What he did not say was that the "interim government" which will "take over" Iraq on June 30 will be handpicked by the US occupation authority and that government would have little power on its own except those granted by the US military.
The pointed refusal to touch upon this key aspect of the future of Iraq would not have been lost on anyone.
"America's commitment to freedom in Iraq is consistent with our ideals and required by our interests." he said. "Iraq will either be a peaceful, democratic country or it will again be a source of violence, a haven for terror and a threat to America and to the world," he said.
No one bothered or was allowed to seek an explanation how Iraq was a threat to America.
Notable among them was his contention that the crisis in Iraq was the work of thugs and terrorists and rejection that Iraq was becoming another Vietnam — a quagmire without an easy exit.
"I think that analogy is false," he said. "I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops and sends the wrong message to the enemy."
Declaring that he he was "proud" of the coalition of countries that had send troops to Iraq, he said he would seek for a new UN Security Council resolution "that will help other nations to decide to participate" in Iraq's reconconstruction. What he did not say was that such participation will be on American terms and not UN terms.
He contented that the war of resistance in Iraq was not a popular uprising. "The violence we've seen is a power grab by ... extreme and ruthless elements" from inside Iraq and from outside, according to Bush.
Asked whether he believes he has acted correctly even if it costs him his job, he replied quickly, "I don't intend to lose my job. Because I'm going to tell the American people I have a plan to win the war on terror."
"Look, nobody likes to see dead people on their television screens," Bush said. "I don't. It's a tough time for the American people to see that. It's gut-wrenching."
Iraq figures in Bush's decline in public opinion polls in two areas that are critical for his re-election campaign. Approval of his handling of Iraq has declined to the mid-40 per cent level, and approval for his handling of terrorism has dipped into the mid-50s. Growing numbers of people say the military action in Iraq has increased rather than decreased the threat of terrorism.

Questions of Sept.11

While Bush opened with remarks about Iraq at Tuesday's press conference, the questions were broader — focusing as well on the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Had I had any inkling whatsoever that people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to protect the country. Just like we're working to prevent further attacks," he said.
Asked whether he felt any responsibility for the attack, Bush said he grieved for the families of the victims and said in retrospect he wished, for example, the Homeland Security Department had been in place. Bush initially opposed creation of the agency but changed his mind under prodding from Congress.
He said said a highly publicised intelligence briefing he received on Aug. 6, 2001, contained "nothing new" in terms of disclosing that Osama Bin Laden hoped to attack the United States. He was heartened, he said, by the disclosure that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) was conducting numerous investigations.
But that claim was undercut earlier in the day at a televised hearing by the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks. Former Acting FBI director Thomas Pickard testified that he did not know where the information about the FBI investigations came from, and one commission member, Slade Gorton, suggested many of the investigations related to fund raising, not the threat of attacks.

Kerry an alternative?

At least 83 US forces have been killed and more than 560 wounded this month, according to the US military, as American troops fight on three fronts: against Sunnis in Fallujah, Shiite militiamen in the south and guerrillas in Baghdad and on its outskirts. At least 678 US troops have died since the war began in March 2003.
Additionally, four American employees of a private security company working in Iraq were killed and their bodies mutilated two weeks ago, and Thomas Hamill, an employee of another firm, was seized as a hostage last week.
What are the chances of Bush's rival in the November elections, Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, reversing Bush's "policy of war" if he wins the race?
Well, Kerry has clearly said that he will continue the policy and there are many who see a vote for Kerry as a vote for war. Writing in the editorial pages of the Washington Post on Tuesday entitled, “A Strategy for Iraq," Kerry said that "no matter who is elected president in November... we will persevere” in Iraq.
"We need to set a new course in Iraq," Kerry wrote. "We need to internationalise the effort and put an end to the American occupation. We need to open up the reconstruction of Iraq to other countries. We need a real transfer of political power to the UN."
“While we may have differed on how we went to war, Americans of all political persuasions are united in our determination to succeed,” wrote Kerry. “The extremists attacking our forces should know they will not succeed in dividing America, or in sapping American resolve, or in forcing the premature withdrawal of US troops."
What Kerry took for granted was that there is indeed a united American stand in favour of the war in Iraq. There is no such thing as American resolve for war; Americans are deeply divided over the wisdom of having gone to Iraq in the first place; many of them resent that Bush administration officials hoodwinked them into seeing the war on Iraq as protecting their security; many have realised that the war was an agenda of the neoconservatives around Bush; many have seen through the ruse that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and had a role in the Sept.11 attacks; most have realised that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has cost and will continue to cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars; and
many have understood that certain groups and businesses close to the Bush administration are the beneficiaries of the billions spent in Iraq. Add to that the reality that as the American casualty figures continue to mount in Iraq, so does the voice of anti-war movements in the US.
Would that mean voters opting for Kerry in November? Most probably, for better or worse, the answer — at this juncture in time — seems to be yes.

With input from wire agencies