Finally! The Bush administration has a plan for Iraq.
A new one, I mean. The old plan — accept flowers from grateful Iraqis, locate weapons of mass destruction, create democracy and the rule of law, depart in five months — had definite appeal, but it didn’t work out.
The new plan is that we’re going to get the Iraqis to come up with a plan.
That’s why the president paid a surprise visit to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki this week. Perhaps sensing that Al-Maliki’s response to a cheery “See you shortly!” from George W. Bush might be something along the lines of “Not if I see you first,” Bush dropped in on Baghdad’s Green Zone unannounced, giving Al-Maliki only five minutes’ notice of his arrival.
That’s leadership for you. As the president explained: “One reason I went to Iraq yesterday, no matter how secretive the trip was, was to get a firsthand feel for how those people are thinking over there ... I understand leadership ... You’ve got to have a plan. And that’s what I found in Iraq.”
In fact, he found that the Iraqis have a “plan to succeed,” “a robust plan” and “a plan to improve security.”
They also have a “plan to bring militias and other armed groups under government control,” a “plan ... to improve the Iraqi judicial system,” “a plan to revitalize the Iraqi economy” and “plans on electricity and energy.”
The president may have mentioned other nifty Iraqi plans too, but after I got past 20 references to the word “plan” in the transcript of Bush’s post-Baghdad news conference, I lost count. (The president also managed to use some form of the word “success” 33 times.)
But let’s not get distracted. The bottom line, for you doubters, is that Bush really does have a new Iraq plan. It consists of making it “clear to the government there that ... it’s really up to them to put a plan in place and execute it.”
Now is that a plan or what?
The Republican congressional leadership also has an Iraq plan. In a confidential (oops!) memo, for instance, House Majority Leader John A. Boehner instructed Republicans planning this week’s floor debates on Iraq to ... change the subject.
It’s “imperative” to shift the focus to “the dangers we face as a nation in a post-9/11 world,” Boehner’s memo advised.
And when in doubt, Republicans can always fall back on vilifying the Democrats.
“We must conduct this debate as a portrait of contrasts,” Boehner urged, painting “a clear choice between a Republican Party aware of the stakes and dedicated to victory, versus a Democrat Party without a coherent national security policy that sheepishly dismisses the challenges America faces in a post-9/11 world.”
The House Republican plan to change the subject and blame the Democrats is almost as good as the Bush plan to get the Iraqis to come up with an Iraq plan. After all, Sun Tzu famously said that “all warfare is deception,” and “divert and distract” is a tried-and-true method of warfare. They don’t call the Republicans the national security party for nothing!
What’s that?
Diversion and distraction tactics are supposed to be used against the enemy on the battlefield, not against the American electorate?
Hey, whose side are you on here?
About those Democrats. Naturally, they have a few Iraq plans too. Though the various Democratic plans differ in details, they’re all built on the common-sense recognition that the Iraq war has been a disaster for Iraqis and for US efforts to combat global terrorism; that our ongoing, open-ended presence in Iraq is part of the problem; that we need to begin a phased drawdown of troops — now.
The funny thing is, if Bush had spent more than a few hours in Baghdad on Tuesday, he might have realized that the Democratic plans for Iraq are remarkably in sync with Iraqi aspirations for Iraq.
For instance, Al-Maliki has said he wants Iraqis to take over security from the US-led coalition in 18 months, and a recent poll found that 87 percent of ordinary Iraqis want a timeline for the withdrawal of US troops.
If Bush were really serious about helping the Iraqis determine their own destiny, he would do what his critics have long urged: Develop a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops.
Now, that would be a plan.
— Rosa Brooks is an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.
