The Political Surge

I try to stay away from blogging on either the Iraq war or short-term political maneuvering, mostly because everyone else does it better than me. But I thought it might be worth saying something about the "surge".

It is patently obvious to everyone, including Bush's generals and other Republicans, that the planned "surge" of troops into Iraq will be ineffectual at best and disastrous at worst. So why is Bush still dead set on doing it?

The defining feature of Bush's presidency has been that politics, not policy, has been Job #1. Bush's primary enemy has never been Bin Laden, or even Saddam; those people have never been real threats to Bush's power and the power of his friends and family. His bugaboo has always been the Democrats, and he's been willing to run both America's economy and its military into the ground (through deficits and Iraq) in an end-run attempt to defeat them once and for all.

Which is why the "surge," like everything else, is political theater. The idea is simple, yet elegant. If Democrats block the surge, then Bush can (wrongly) blame them for America's eventual loss in Iraq. If they accept the surge, the Dems are right back where they were in 2004.

Catch-22?

Unlike the original Iraq war, I think the Dems can win this round, and trap Bush between his own rock-and-hard-place. By pre-emptively attacking the idea of a surge before Bush formally proposes it, Dems can portray Bush as having put forth a policy that was already discredited. By gaining allies in the military and among conservatives, they can paint Bush as a crazed lone gunman. And by complaining about their lack of tools with which to stop the surge, they can highlight Bush's dictatorial style while allowing him to dig his own grave.

The thing is, when a leader spends all of his time fighting rival factions in his own country, that country inevitably suffers. That's where we are now. But if that country realizes quickly enough that it's been tricked, it may throw the bum out and rally around its national interest once again. Let's hope our system is robust enough to do just that.

Update: Looks like the American people are seeing through the "surge."


Bonus Reading Guide: If you really want to see the true depth of the doo-doo our government is in, read this and weep...weep especially hard if you voted for Bush...