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Bush's Hand Forces a Third Card John LeBoutillier Now it is becoming clear: President Bush postponed his pre-Christmas Iraq policy speech to the nation for one reason: he has decided to increase — or surge — the number of American troops in Iraq and didn't want to deliver this unpopular news to the American people during the holiday season. OK. Sometime after the New Year we will hear his "new way forward." It will include an increase of somewhere between 20,000 and 35,000 U.S. troops. What will then happen?
1) Many Americans will listen to the president and give him the benefit of the doubt. They will wait — a little longer — for the tide to change in Iraq.
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2) A majority of Americans however will disagree with Mr. Bush — and their already-hot anger will boil over. They will see the new troop deployments as an escalation of a war they now view as a mistake based on lies and regret ever supporting it.
3) In Washington most elected politicians do not want to run in 2008 with Iraq as the dominant issue. Bush's troop surge will send ripples of panic through both parties. (The whole premise of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group was to figure a way to get Iraq over with before the 2008 election cycle got under way.)
4) The only pol running for office in 2008 who will be happy over the surge will be John McCain because it is his plan. But, in fact, he willalso be unhappy because he'd rather sound hawkish to the GOP base rather than risk the failure of the Bush policy, which is about to be the Bush-McCain policy. In other words, if the surge plan fails to calm Iraq down, then McCain's White House hopes are seriously wounded.
5) The Democrats will not cut off funds for the war or the troops out of fear of being seen as anti-soldier, as they were for a generation at the end of the Vietnam War. Instead, they will run a series of the most aggressive, probing, dirt-digging investigations of an administration we will have ever seen. Everything will be probed: pre-war intelligence, Haliburton, Cheney's energy dealings, the conduct of the war itself, the failed hunt for Osama bin Laden, the holding and treatment of detainees, and other still unexpected things.
The power of the subpoena is what the Democrats won on Nov. 7. And with their anti-war base furious over Bush's escalation surge plan, the Democrats will have to even the playing field by tearing Bush and Cheney limb from limb.
What role will the now-in-the-minority Republicans play? Will they "go to the mattresses" to defend Bush and company? Prediction: No, they will do little to defend this now-lame duck Bush administration.
The remaining Republicans in the House and Senate are furious at Bush's arrogance — and Rove's inept 2006 strategy. They blame the handling of the Iraq War for their new-found minority status. And they are profoundly worried about 2008; their own fates are so linked to Bush and Iraq that you will see more and more of them try to separate themselves from a sinking ship.
How does this all impact the nominations for 2008? Well, the two present-day front-runners — McCain and Hillary — were both huge war advocates back in 2002. McCain is the leading hawk today of them all; and Hillary has not pulled an Edwards, Biden and Kerry "I wouldn't have voted for the war if I knew then what I know now." Yes, Hillary has critiqued the conduct of the war but not the original decision to invade a country which had not attacked us.
The rise of Obama is in great part the anti-war left of the Democrat Party — and majority of that party, in fact — searching for someone who is "pure" on the war. Pure is defined as against the war from the beginning.
The left is wary of Hillary. And the more the war drags on, the more unpopular it gets. And the more they want a pure anti-war candidate. And at the moment, their only such candidate is Obama.
The GOP nomination is equally depressing. McCain and Rudy have the name ID, but they do not have the love of the base. Romney lately seems to be seen as a flip-flopping panderer. The GOP wants its own Obama: a new face who brings some refreshing new energy, ideas and spunk to the race.
All of this makes the long-predicted-in-this-space idea of an outsider — an independent third candidate — all the more possible. As things sour in the country, and both parties are more and more seen as equally corrupt and complicit in so many things including Iraq, illegal immigration, and out-of-control spending, an outsider riding in to fix things becomes more and more attractive. Don't rule it out. Editor's note:
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