No Plan B in Bush Iraq strategy

Cthippo · 14 Jan 2007

AFP said:

WASHINGTON - Despite palpable frustration in Washington with the government in Baghdad, the under-fire Bush administration is refusing to contemplate a Plan B, should its long-odds new strategy fail to pacify Iraq.

President George W. Bush's new plan, unveiled last week, pins the lion's share of responsibility for stemming out-of-control violence on Iraqi leaders and security forces which have repeatedly fallen short of US hopes.

Many Bush critics and allies still doubt Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government is willing or able to challenge murderous militias, under a plan which will see 21,500 US troops surge into Baghdad and Al-Anbar province and three more Iraqi brigades in the capital.

Top administration officials are however adamant that contemplating an alternative would simply doom the current plan to failure.

"I don't think you go to plan B. You work with plan A," Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said Thursday, explaining why the administration had no contingency plans lined up.

"You work with plan A and you give it the possibility of success, the best possibility of success."

New US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the one senior policymaker not tarred with the decision to go to war, has been the only administration official to publicly concede the possibility of failure.

"I think we have to focus on making it work ... but if it doesn't work, then I think we have to evaluate ... our national interests," he said at a congressional hearing.

But those assurances are doing little to still protest about Bush's new plan, and lack of a timetable to withdraw US troops in Congress, and among many political analysts.

"Since we did not have a plan, in my view, when we went into Iraq, we better darn well have a plan for how to disengage from Iraq that looks like it looked ahead to some of these questions," said anti-war Democratic Senator Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record).

By placing such a large measure of responsibilities on Iraqis, the new plan does contain a buried rationale for withdrawal -- should they fail to live up to US demands to crack down on Shiite extremists.

But Eric Hooglund, professor of politics at Bates College, Maine, said it was difficult to see the administration taking the escape route.

"The ideology has become so firm -- forget Democrats -- they can't even listen to what the Republicans are saying," he said.

An admission of failure would require such a complete repudiation of Bush administration orthodoxy that it may be that only the next US president will be able to change course, after the 2008 election.

S. Azmat Hassan, a former Pakistani ambassador to Syria, now at Seton Hall University's Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations, said Bush would find it impossible to admit defeat.

"There is no Plan B ... it will be very humiliating," he said.

"It's very difficult for any administration let alone a heavily ideologically motivated one to say we have lost."

Philip Gordon of the Brookings Institution said Bush had never been likely to in the last two years of his term frame a new approach tantamount to acknowleding failure in Iraq.

It could be that Bush would "let whoever follows absorb defeat if necessary, rather than saying 'okay, we tried it for five years, it didn't work, and now I'm going to admit defeat," he said.

Months of frustration appear to be coming to a head with the Maliki government, just as Bush has doubled his bet on action from Iraqi leaders.

Rice said Thursday that she believed Maliki was resolved to live up to his promises, but warned, "I think he knows that his goverment is, in a sense, on borrowed time."

Gates acknowledged that the Shiite prime minister's record "is not an encouraging one," but he said the United States will learn within two months whether he is serious this time.

So the fate of the United States in Iraq now rests on a man described in a memo by National Security Advisor
Stephen Hadley leaked to the New York Times as recently as November as "either ignorant of what is going on" or "misrepresenting his intentions."
Click to expand...

Glider · 14 Jan 2007

Was there a plan A?

cpemma · 14 Jan 2007

Plan A was invade Iraq, find WMD, get rid of Saddam; the people will greet us with cheers and flowers, nice Americans bring Democracy™, Coke and McDonalds. We fix a few things we broke (bloody Powell ) but all costs covered a thousand-fold by the oil we grab control of, everybody wins (if they're my buddies).

Ride off into the sunset, home before breakfast, smoke me a kipper, job's a goodun. Tomorrow we pay off what we owe China, offer Tony a free holiday at the ranch for all his help, and sort out Korea.

It all worked in the dream...

padrejones2001 · 15 Jan 2007

I wouldn't blame this on Powell. If there was anybody in the Joint Chiefs that thought this was a bad idea, it was him. Remember the Powell Doctrine? He was limited by the morons around him, but he wouldn't resign because his loyalty is to any commander-in-chief, no matter how moronic. The blame can fall squarely on the shoulders of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

MystChic · 15 Jan 2007

Hey - where's johnny howards holiday? He helped out too ya know...

Nexxo · 15 Jan 2007

padrejones2001 said:

I wouldn't blame this on Powell. If there was anybody in the Joint Chiefs that thought this was a bad idea, it was him. Remember the Powell Doctrine? He was limited by the morons around him, but he wouldn't resign because his loyalty is to any commander-in-chief, no matter how moronic. The blame can fall squarely on the shoulders of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.
Click to expand...

I think cpemma referred to Powell's warning to Bush: "If we break it, we own it", thus spoiling the party by reminding them that they are responsible for their actions.

I love the newspeak in Bush' government. The keep talking about "Bush' new strategy for Iraq", which basically consists of sending in more troops: i.e. more of the old strategy.

Who says people learn from their mistakes?

cpemma · 16 Jan 2007

Nexxo said:

Who says people learn from their mistakes?
Click to expand...

The sign of true intelligence is the ability to learn from the mistakes of others in the species. Any dumb mutt can learn from its own mistakes. Well, almost any...

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No Plan B in Bush Iraq strategy

Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

Glider /dev/null

cpemma Ecky thump

padrejones2001 Puppy Love

MystChic Geology Rocks!

Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

cpemma Ecky thump

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No Plan B in Bush Iraq strategy

Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

Glider /dev/null

cpemma Ecky thump

padrejones2001 Puppy Love

MystChic Geology Rocks!

Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

cpemma Ecky thump

Share This Page

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