A Surprise in Bush's Iraq Speech

From noted Bush-bashing journalist Jonathan Chait:

I am not, to say the least, a fan of President Bush. But a portion of his speech tonight genuinely moved me and made me think more highly of him. It was the part where he addressed opponents of the Iraq war, said he understand their passion but asked that they think of the stakes of defeat now that the war had happened and asked that they not give in to despair. I cannot remember this president ever speaking to his political opponents except to mischaracterize their views and use them as a straw man. (His post-Florida speech did to some extent, but it was so vague and struck me as so patently disingenuous that it didn't produce any similar reaction in me.)

This may be easy for me to say because I supported the war and oppose withdrawal. But even Bush's prior pro-war speeches mostly struck me as simplistic, ugly and demagogic, reminders that I supported the war despite the administration rather than because of it. But this moment in his speech tonight really struck me as some kind of symbolic or emotional break from the past for Bush--a genuine attempt to unify Americans rather than polarize them. Bush and his supporters (both inside and outside the administration) have made it so damn hard to support them on this war. It just got a little easier tonight.

Dan - I understand your sentiments regarding the House. I finally pulled a Reagan video off the shelf that I have had for over a year yet hadn't even removed the shrink wrap from. It's the sort of thing that makes you shake your head when thinking about the House and its profligate spending, and the President and his '72 Dolphins-like determination not to suffer a veto. However, on the Iraq War, I am so far from where you seem to be - not that we disagree on the need to see it through, but I think that it was, if not strictly necessary, a strategically brilliant move. The changes in Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine are causally related to the action in Iraq and Afghanistan. If there is hope for sustained progress in the war against terror (a misnomer; terror is a tactic, and the war is against Islamic extremists bent on realizing their own nihilistic vision of extending Islam to other areas of the globe), it is in reshaping the societies in which it incubates.

This gets a bit into what Bruce was asking: Why Iraq? What does "victory" there look like? What does it mean for the broader GWOT? I think that it is a foot hold, a concrete demonstration of our intention to change the culture of an area that we have been willing to let muddle along as a safe haven for tyrants, provided they sold us oil. I view terrorism of the kind we have seen over the past 15 years as blowback for the tyrant coddling of the prior 60 years. Jimmuh Cah-tuh's approach of allowing Iran to become an Islamic "Republic" while cutting down the Shah isn't a model worth emulating. Bringing democracy to the region is not, in my estimation, some crazy notion that will never fly, particularly in this day and age of free flow of information. Not that it will be easy, not that it can't fail, but had we not destroyed the Taliban's home base in Afghanistan and then destroyed Iraq (a secondary haven for terrorists, behind Iran and Saudi Arabia, but still dangerous) in favor of securing our borders, we would be in a defensive shell, and I would guess that we wouldn't have had 4+ years without a domestic terror incident.

Iran (and, with a somewhat diminished degree of urgency, Saudi Arabia) are places in need of reform. Iran is tough, given that they will have nukes soon (the CIA screwed up there again - time to rethink domestic intelligence, maybe trash the CIA and start over). However, having Afghanistan to the east and Iraq to the west as nascent democracies, and having a society with 70% of its populace too young to remember the Shah, where Internet penetration is high - I think those elements give me hope that internal reform could succeed. Saudi Arabia can be more easily isolated, as it has no nukes, no military, etc. So it may be easier to bring change to Saudi Arabia diplomatically and in other non-military ways, particularly as we lessen our dependence on their oil.

That's a lot of off-the-cuff, on-the-throne Monday morning musing, but now I should get in the shower and get to work!