Iraq, Iraq, Iraq

This is from The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — The acknowledgment by the United States Army spokesman in Iraq that the latest plan to secure Baghdad has faltered leaves President Bush with some of the ugliest choices he has yet faced in the war.

He can once again order a rearrangement of American forces inside the country, as he did in August, when American commanders declared that newly trained Iraqi forces would “clear and hold” neighborhoods with backup support from redeployed American forces. That strategy collapsed within a month, frequently forcing the Americans to take the lead, making them prime targets.

There is no assurance, though, that another redeployment of those forces will reduce the casualty rate, which has been unusually high in recent weeks, senior military and administration officials say. The toll comes just before midterm elections, in which even many of his own party have given up arguing that progress is being made or that the killing will soon slow.

Or Mr. Bush can reassess the strategy itself, perhaps listening to those advisers — including some members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the advisory commission charged with coming up with new strategies for Iraq — who say that he needs to redefine the “victory” that he again on Thursday declared was his goal.

One official providing advice to the president noted on Thursday that while Mr. Bush still insists his goal is an Iraq that “can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself,” he has already dropped most references to creating a flourishing democracy in the heart of the Middle East.

Or, he could take the advice of Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is expected to run to replace him in two years, who argues in favor of pouring more troops into Iraq, an option one senior administration official said recently might make sense but could “cause the bottom to fall out” of public support.

But whatever choices he makes — probably not until after the Nov. 7 election, and perhaps not until the bipartisan group issues its report — they will be forced by a series of events, in Iraq and at home, that now seems largely out of Mr. Bush’s control, in Iraq and at home.

Okay, so the New York Times is calling Iraq a failure. The Bush administration's "Stay-the-course" strategy isn't working anymore. Then again, "stay-the-course" wasn't a strategy--it was a marketing plan! So however you define the Bush administration's plan, it has been a complete disaster. And now President Bush is stuck doing the real hard work of trying to figure out how to get the U.S. out of Iraq. And this work could be made even tougher if the Democrats take control of Congress.

Guess what? It is not just the New York Times that is calling Bush's strategy a failure. How about this story from The Washington Post:

The growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration's Iraq strategy, coupled with the prospect of Democratic wins in next month's midterm elections, will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war, according to lawmakers in both parties, foreign policy experts and others involved in policymaking.

Senior figures in both parties are coming to the conclusion that the Bush administration will be unable to achieve its goal of a stable, democratic Iraq within a politically feasible time frame. Agitation is growing in Congress for alternatives to the administration's strategy of keeping Iraq in one piece and getting its security forces up and running while 140,000 U.S. troops try to keep a lid on rapidly spreading sectarian violence.

On the campaign trail, Democratic candidates are hammering Republican candidates for backing a failed Iraq policy, and GOP defense of the war is growing muted. A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released this week showed that voters are more confident in Democrats' ability to handle the Iraq war than the Republicans' -- a reversal from the last election.

And here's McClatchy's Washington Bureau:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S-led campaign to curb violence in Baghdad neighborhood by neighborhood has failed, and American officials are looking for a new strategy, a top U.S. military official said Thursday.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said that instead of quelling violence, the campaign, code-named Operation Forward Together, had contributed to a spike in U.S. military deaths.

The operation "has not met our overall expectations of sustaining a reduction in the levels of violence," Caldwell said. "We are working very closely with the government of Iraq to determine how best to refocus our efforts."

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros called Caldwell's assessment "accurate and candid."

Bush administration policy has been built on two assumptions: that American troops would be able to shed some security responsibilities as the numbers of trained Iraqi police officers and soldiers grew, and that the elected government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would be able to assert control over Shiite Muslim militias aligned with its political supporters.

Neither assumption has proved true. Violence has continued to surge, even as tens of thousands of U.S.-trained police officers and soldiers have been added to the Iraqi security forces, and al-Maliki's government has yet to present a program to disarm the militias.

President Bush doesn't have a clue as to how to resolve Iraq. The Bush White House has been built up as a marketing and sales office, designed to sell a preconceived neoconservative foreign policy and an extreme pro-corporate economic policy. The administration does not formulate or analyze public policy. If you want to know what the Bush administration's policy is on Iraq, then look at the marketing statements--stay the course! As Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down! Iraq has become the central front in the war on terror! We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed, and not a day longer. Without U.S. troops, Iraq would be chaos. The Bush administration's Iraq policy was defined by marketing statements--not by a serious policy analysis with clearly definable benchmarks for the success or failure of that policy, a timetable for how long this policy should take place, and options to consider if this policy has failed. With two weeks left to go before the elections, the Bush administration's continuing failure in Iraq may just hand the Democrats control of Congress. And with the Democrats in control of Congress, it will be almost impossible for the Bush administration to not just continue its current open-ended policy in Iraq, but also to defend against any radical course changes of U.S. policy in Iraq. This Bush administration does not have the policy analysis skills needed to resolve this complex problem, created by this same Bush administration four years ago.