Democratic gains are a no-confidence vote on Iraq

By Peter S. Canellos, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic message took many forms in many places, from calls for troop withdrawals, to demands for a tougher stance with the Iraqi government, to insistence on the replacement of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

But yesterday, it all added up to one thing: A no-confidence vote on President Bush's Iraq policies.

The Democratic victory does not mark the end of the war in Iraq, or even the beginning of its end.

But it almost certainly marks the end of President Bush's ability to prosecute the war for any reason other than preserving America's position in the world, and for any goal other than hastening its conclusion.

Bush has long argued that this war stands for many big ideas -- ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction, building democracy in the Middle East, and defeating terrorists on their own turf.

There proved to be no weapons of mass destruction. There was no collaboration between Saddam Hussein's government and Al Qaeda. And there have always been doubters about America's ability to plant democracy on a country riven by sectarian divisions.

And yet Bush always believed that average Americans would see the war as he did: As a show of American resolve.

By the start of the 2006 election cycle, there were clear indications that people were losing confidence in Bush's leadership.

Many Republican strategists sought to focus the election on local concerns, asking voters to back their familiar and often respected senators and congressmen, while raising doubts about unknown Democratic challengers.

But at the start of the fall campaign, Bush made the decision to put himself at the forefront of the campaign, apparently believing he could make the case that Iraq was now the central front in the war on terrorism -- and that the lessons of September 11, 2001 were guiding his policies.

"The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq, so America will not leave until victory is achieved," Bush declared on September 2, in an unusually forceful radio address.

The address set the tone for the Republican campaign to come, but it also revealed some weaknesses that came back to haunt the GOP: Bush trumpeted a new initiative to secure Baghdad, stating that "the initial results are encouraging."

But the initiative ultimately failed to take hold.

Bush also declared that "only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence."

And yet, in the weeks to come, numerous observers described a country perilously close to civil war.

Now, the people have given Bush their verdict on his policies. Democrats offered no single path of their own, so yesterday's votes should be seen only as a mandate for change -- for some sort of a new way forward.

Michael Gerson, the former White House aide who wrote some of Bush's most memorable speeches defining the war on terror, said that Bush should not abandon the war in Iraq -- but he must redefine the war in a way that satisfies a public desire for change.

"I think that there's going to have to be a significant relaunch of the Iraq effort to win public support for the last two years of the presidency, to pursue the strategies that the president feels are necessary to pursue," Gerson said during a meeting on Monday with a small group of journalists.

Former Secretary of State James Baker's Iraq Study Group has been exploring ways to redeploy troops and shorten the war: The panel, co-chaired by former Democratic Representative Lee Hamilton of Indiana, is due to present the president with a new set of strategies by the end of the year.

It's an opportunity for a new course, and one that Gerson thinks the president should take.

"I do think the administration is genuinely open to the Baker commission," he said. "I think they're looking to that as a way to not fundamentally change, but to redefine their approach in a way that will build bipartisan support."