Searching for an Iraq Exit Strategy

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The task facing the Old Guard is to fashion an exit strategy from Iraq that can salvage U.S. prestige and avoid turning the civil war into an even wider and more violent catastrophe. There are only a few known knowns here: it surely pains the father that it has come to this. It is just as galling to the son that he had to invite his father's most trusted consiglieres to step in and help clean up his mess overseas. Neither man appreciates the chortling sounds coming from the vast Bush 41 crowd, which has long harbored grave doubts about the soundness of 43's foreign policy team. The biggest question is how the object of the intervention will react. As one senior official in the 41 White House says of the President, "He can fight this and turn into a constantly warring figure, or he can turn back into the friendly wise guy who gets along with everyone. The latter will serve him much better."

It does help Bush that the return of the realists comes at the very moment when both parties are looking for political cover on the war that went wrong. Although the leaders of the new Democratic majority in Congress say they plan to hold the Administration accountable for the spiraling costs, mismanagement and graft associated with the war, the reality is that the party remains divided over what kind of military strategy to pursue now. Democrats who voted for the war and have been on the defensive with the party's antiwar base are anxious to get behind any sign that points to an exit. Those who voted against the war but who don't have a clue about how to stabilize Iraq want to find a program they can get behind without looking like silly skedaddlers. The Republicans are equally torn, between realists furious at the Administration for refusing to change course sooner and true believers who fret that the White House is about to abandon the neoconservative project to bring democracy to the Middle East.

Given all those diverging views, it's understandable that Bush talks about the commission headed by Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton the way a child who can't wait for Christmas talks about Santa Claus. Bush mentioned the commission four times in his press conference last week. The President opposed the creation of the panel last fall but eventually came around, in part at the urging of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Worried about whether the White House believed in the commission from the start, Baker insisted on meeting with the President before taking the job and insisted that Bush personally ask him to take it on. Baker told Bush in his private session that he was likely to come up with recommendations that Bush might not favor. Asked by Baker whether he truly backed an approach that would lead to a strategic change, Bush said he did.