Mr Bush's masterplan: to spread the blame around

Leading article
Published: 12 January 2007

It was a chastened US president who addressed his fellow countrymen on Iraq on Wednesday, a president who accepted responsibility for mistakes made, called the situation "unacceptable" and ordered an about-turn on pretty much every aspect of operations. The US military is now being called upon to fight the battle for Baghdad all over again, in circumstances that are infinitely more complex than they were the first time around.

In its grave tone and subdued staging, this was a broadcast whose sombreness rivalled the low points of the Nixon and Carter presidencies. From a commander-in-chief whose cheery outlook has twice contributed to his electoral appeal, the dark mood was doubly shocking. Alluding, perhaps, to his arrogant "mission accomplished" speech from the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, George W Bush warned that victory would not look like the victories of the past: "There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship."

The question, of course, is whether the United States can achieve anything approaching victory in Iraq at all. Violence is now endemic. The country is awash with weapons. Society is fractured along ethnic and religious lines several times over. There may be an elected government in Baghdad, but it, too, is splintered, and its authority does not extend much further than the heavily fortified "green zone".

The military push, or "surge", that Mr Bush has ordered almost guarantees that things in Iraq will get worse, perhaps much worse, before they have the slightest chance of getting better. More likely, the new plan will run out of time, money, manpower, or all three. It has, though, one key advantage for Mr Bush compared with the so-called Baker plan and the more gradualist alternatives on offer: he cannot - yet - be accused of cutting and running, and the blame for failure will be spread around.

The military operations Mr Bush proposes were presented as an Iraqi-inspired plan: US and Iraqi forces are supposed to be jointly responsible for restoring and maintaining order. The Iraqi government, for its part, has undertaken to pass legislation on sharing oil revenues, create jobs and modify the de-Baathification programme to foster national reconciliation. US support, Mr Bush made clear, was contingent on the Iraqi government fulfilling its part of the deal.

Mr Bush threatened moves against Syrian and Iranian interests if these countries interfered in any way - in other words, they too would become scapegoats for failure. But it is the Democrat-controlled Congress that Mr Bush really skewered. By presenting failure in the apocalyptic light he did - as a "disaster" for the US and a threat to the very survival of its allies in the Middle East - Mr Bush has made it exceptionally hard for Congress to reject a request for more funds. Those voting "No" would risk accusations that they are undermining US security - the old patriotic card again.

Yesterday, the new Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, completed the administration's volte-face by announcing that he wanted to boost the US military by more than 90,000. The light and agile force favoured by Donald Rumsfeld - the force that conquered Iraq, but proved incapable of holding it - is now, it seems, recognised as just another mistake, to be consigned to the same oblivion as Mr Bush's premature triumphalism.

In an effort to explain why he dismissed the Baker plan so comprehensively, Mr Bush offered this. "To step back now," he said, "would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear that country apart, and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale." As an admission of the catastrophe that the US invasion has inflicted on Iraq, this summary could hardly be bettered.