The President's Plan - On a Wing and Prayer

Alright, after sleeping on this, I have more and more doubts. Further, Rice and Gates are out and about this morning adding elaborations to the plan which need some examining.

First, the plan itself ... as I wrote last night, there seems little reason to trust the al-Maliki regime now. Promises have been made in the past to no avail. What is different now? Nothing it seems except we're saying we'll give it another go. All this in light of National Security Advisor Hadley's assessment last November that Prime Minister al-Maliki is "either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action." The ENTIRE plan now rests on this the trust of this individual. That much was clear last night.

But this morning, it deepens. Accoridng to Rice, the new way forward is actually an Iraqi plan that al-Maliki layed out for Bush in Amman, Jordan last November. Really? This could be the beginning of shifting the blame, laying a nice rhetorical touch in case things do not go as planned.

Speaking of fall-back positions, it seems like Rice's rhetoric is the only one we have. This morning, Secretary of Defense Gates was asked what we do if the Iraqis don't live up to their side of the plan. It's a good question. After all, the President said last night that our committment to Iraq is not open-ended. Gates' answer? Well, you see ... we're not sending all our troops at once ... we'll know ahead of time if the Iraqis arent' cooperating ...

Ok, so what do we do if they don't cooperate? Nothing it seems ... just keep on keepin' on. There is a lot of talk in the media that this is the "last chance plan." But I don't think so. Bush has been annoyingly consistent in one belief, that we cannot fail in Iraq. So no matter what happens or doesn't happen in Iraq, he'll try "one more time" until the end of his term, passing on the horrid mess to someone else.

I'm just not sure what he can pass on. The plan to surge and accelerate essentailly tops out our global military committment. We've got essentially nothing left to send anywhere. As the military has already said, the military is breaking. If this plan doesn't work, we've got no other options of sending troops. The only way out of that trap is to expand the military, which has already been planned. As to that plan, I have to turn to my phrase from last night, "if wishes were wings ..." It's all fine and good to say let's expand the military. It's quite another to find the volunteers to do so. All of tihs says nothing of the cost (if wishes were dollars ... well, you know).

And lastly, speaking of a strained military, there was an ominous vagueness of Bush's speech concerning Iran and Syria. The President said we'd stop their support of insurgents, logistical, training, and otherwise. How we'll do that remained undefined. Although he did mention that we are sending an additional carrier group to the region. This morning, when the questions was put to Rice (would we strike Iran directly) ... Rice demurred, nothing is off the table, we'll do what is necessary, etc. To that notion I can only reel from shock. We can barely scrape up 20,000 troops for this "surge" and we might consider radically escalating the conflict?!

Not much new here ... bad news all around.

The President Speaks

Tonight, as we all know, the President will unveil his already well-known "way forward in Iraq." I offered the leaked outlines of the plan last week. I'm sure those details will hold.

The media is in full anticipation and commentary mode *yawn*. I'll be looking at their reactions tomorrow. But tonight, I wanted to debunk some truly bad arguments that's being wafted about.

First, perhaps snidely, I have to comment on a blip I heard this morning. We all know that Bush will attempt the near impossible, convincing the American public that the Iraq debacle can be salvaged AND that 20,000 and a couple of billion will do it nicely. A herculean feat for even the most skilled of wordsmiths. Oh, wait, President Bush isn't that. But not to fear, his press staff say that Bush will be in "education and explanation" mode this evening. So everyone, look forward to being schooled on the nuances of the Iraqi quagmire this evening. Ought to be interesting.

Lastly, I just have to call'em like I see it. When confronted with poll numbers showing that the American public, in vast numbers, do not favor increasing troop levels, the admimistration's line is that "we don't make policy decisions based on polls." But then I hear, almost in the same breath, "we truly believe that the American public wants to win and that they support our policies." Hmm, can't have it both ways. But who after all is really paying attention?!