The reaction to last week’s terrorist bombings of London’s mass-transit system was predictable. President Bush offered the appropriate remarks condemning the tragedy. We celebrated the Brits for their plucky defiance. Security was redoubled. And the dead were still being counted while everyone went back to riding the buses and trains.
But you might have missed a much less publicized news item. A day after the tragedy, Italy announced that it will pull its troops out of Iraq in the fall. That, in the end, might be the bigger story coming out of last week’s attack: In Iraq, the Coalition of the Willing is fast becoming the Coalition of the Unwilling.
Of course Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is denying any connection between his country’s withdrawal and the terrorist attack on London. But, he added, the reality is after attacks on New York, Madrid and London, Italy is the next logical target. What Berlusconi didn’t say is he obviously hopes that by withdrawing from Iraq, the terrorists will spare his country. Last year after the bombing in Madrid, Spain voted for the candidate who would get its soldiers out of Iraq posthaste. The war has always been unpopular in Britain despite the staunch support of Prime Minister Tony Blair, so the reality is that after the attack on London, the Brits will want out even more.
Here in America, while the president gives periodic pep talks on the "progress" in Iraq, the public knows better. It is harder to find a voter who agrees with Mr. Bush’s insistence on "staying the course" than it is to find a senior who supports his plan to privatize Social Security. As the death toll of both American troops and Iraqis mounts, it is reasonable to again ask the question, Has all of this expenditure of blood and money made you feel safer? Right now, Saddam Hussein is safer than any of us who ride a bus, subway or train. So maybe a better question is, what do we do now?
The two choices laid out most often are either to set a timetable and withdraw our troops (the Sen. Ted Kennedy solution) or to not set a timetable and withdraw our troops at some indeterminate date when the Iraqis can fight their own battle for survival against the insurgents and terrorists (the Bush plan). There are a few intrepid souls who mention that we need more American troops at least temporarily to secure Iraq before we leave (a position that I have taken in this column, but which is no longer politically possible in light of the problems in meeting enlistment goals and getting beleaguered reservists to re-enlist). It would be tantamount to political suicide to propose re-instituting the draft to save Iraq.
Neither the Kennedy nor Bush plans offer much hope. The president is right when he states that a public timetable for withdrawal would be an invitation for the insurgents and terrorists to wait for us to leave and then launch a large-scale assault. If we are honest, then we must realize that the word "timetable" is just polite language for abandoning Iraq to its fate – a fate that will almost certainly include civil war.
By the same token, the president never explains how staying the course will result in victory. There is a good reason for that. Lacking an even greater commitment of troops and financial resources, we cannot achieve even a limited victory in Iraq (limited in the sense that we need not leave behind a free democracy in Iraq, but at least a stable government capable of surviving).
Commentator George Will reminds us that every nation makes mistakes when it wages war, but that they need not prevent winning that war. However, it appears more each day that the president’s failure to prepare the public to support a huge expenditure in blood and money to secure Iraq is a fatal mistake from which we cannot recover. Not only did Mr. Bush not prepare us for the arduous task ahead, but he cut taxes, implying that this war could be won on the cheap. Even today while the president mouths tough words about sacrifice, our troops are the only ones sacrificing. Here at home, ribbons on cars substitute for a national call to conserve gas or tighten our belts. The president hemorrhages public support on the war daily so, in effect, he has squandered his election mandate.
The stark reality then is no matter the body counts or the presidential optimism, we are losing the war in Iraq. And the likelihood is that it is too late politically to do much of anything about it.
Reality bites.
