PRESIDENT BUSH stayed in character yesterday as he defended his Iraq policy. "America could not retreat in the face of terror," he said at the Pentagon. "The battle in Iraq will end in victory." A strategy to end the occupation should not be expected from a president who favors bravado and heedless certainty. The next president will need to find a way out of a conflict that was supposed to last five weeks, not five years.
Bush said the war "has been longer and harder and more costly than we anticipated," an indirect acknowledgment that he expected most US troops would have left the country within six months of the March 2003 invasion. Almost 160,000 remain. The 30,000 added for the surge have improved security in Baghdad, but Iraq has always presented more of a political than a military challenge for the United States.
"Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive Al Qaeda out," Bush said. He was referring to Sunni leaders' decisions in the western region and Baghdad to work against the terrorists, for a regular stipend. This fragile arrangement needs to become a prelude to countrywide deals among Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds.
Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador, and General David Petraeus, the US commander, are trying to encourage this grand accommodation. They testify before Congress next month and probably will argue for keeping no fewer than the 130,000 troops in place in Iraq. Bush is determined to maintain a large force in Iraq until he leaves office.
"By defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq, we will show the world that . . . men and women who love liberty can defeat the terrorists," Bush said. Saddam Hussein, the dictator deposed by the invasion, was no friend of Al Qaeda. Bush inadvertently fostered terrorism by destabilizing Iraq, unleashing sectarian hatreds, and keeping US troops in place.
The Army and the Marine Corps are tightly stretched; Afghanistan demands further attention; a majority of Americans oppose the war; 4,000 Americans have been killed. It's time to engage Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, in negotiations on a regional framework to facilitate a US withdrawal, and to put more pressure on the Iraqis to settle their differences. The absolutism of the war on terror has no place here.
John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, follows the Bush line, but won't be wearing Bush's blinders. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to begin pulling troops out. The gains of the surge may make ending the war less bloody than it otherwise would have been. The United States has too many burdens and responsibilities in the world to be saddled with Iraq for another half-decade.
