Is George Bush Sliding Into LBJ Territory On The Iraq War?
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius concludes that George Bush may now be moving into the phase that stymied another president — Lyndon Baines Johnson, during the Vietnam war:
Now it gets painful for George W. Bush. Iraq is wrapped around his presidency as tightly as Vietnam was around Lyndon Johnson’s. Bush keeps telling the country he has a plan for victory, but the polls suggest the public doesn’t believe it. Those big “Plan for Victory” signs at his rally in Wheeling, W.Va., this week read more like an exhortation than a statement of fact.
Indeed, whereas two years ago statements that victory was on the way sounded like you-could-argue-it assessments, those assertions now seem to be more like political self-affirmations to shore up the troops, shore up the Iraqis, keep supporters in line — and perhaps motivate the beset administration itself. MORE:
Bush works hard to disguise it, but one senses the same inner conflict that afflicted Johnson as Vietnam began to go bad. In “The Best and the Brightest,” David Halberstam described LBJ’s torment: “He was a good enough politician to know what had gone wrong and what he was in for and what it meant to his dreams, but he could not turn back, he could not admit that he had made a mistake. He could not lose and thus he had to plunge forward.” But, recalls Halberstam, “instead of leading, he was immobilized, surrounded, seeing critics everywhere.”It’s a dangerous situation. If Bush loses his ability to convince the country that his war aims make sense, America may be forced into a hasty withdrawal that will have devastating repercussions. To avoid this outcome and maintain its strategy of a measured handoff to Iraqi forces, the administration must bridge what in Johnson’s day was known as the “credibility gap.” Bush could shake up his team and add new voices that can speak more convincingly to the public. Or he could reach out to moderate Democrats who support a bipartisan foreign policy, if there are any who haven’t been chased off by Karl Rove. Or he could give a larger communications role to the uniformed military. The generals won’t like being political frontmen, but they may prefer it to a collapse of support for the wars.
Those are all strategies that would be useful but not easy.
Bush has given some veiled hints that he might in fact bring in a new face or two, but so far there’s no indication of an expulsion of tired blood and impending infusion of new blood. Karl Rove has indeed made it poison for many moderate Democrats to join with the White House since Rove has shown that his number one goal above anything else (read that above national unity on terrorism or on the war) is to defeat any Democrats if he possibly can (even if they worked with the White House) and paint the Demmies broad-brush as undermining the troops and the war on terrorism. The generals taking a larger p.r. role might shore up some support, but a segment of Iraq war opponents would dismiss whatever they say as soon as they say it as administration spin.
Still, some of these strategies could work if they were coupled with some solid, impressive tangible victories or changes in Iraq. Bush’s honest answer that the U.S. could be there for several years and the next President would be the one to evaluate whether to pull out didn’t help: that snuffed out the light at the end of the tunnel that some had hoped to soon see.
Bush’s fatal flaws as a President seem to be his reliance on a tightly-knit group of regulars who he won’t replace or shuffle around, his slowness to bring in new top managers, — and a near obsession with refusing to admit mistakes, partly out of seeming pride, and partly to ensure that he won’t give political foes an opening.
And that stems from a problem that goes way back: the seemingly low priority Bush has placed as President on trying to create consensual support on key issues. Just having your base’s votes and peeling off enough Democrats and Independents to win on election day isn’t a governing solution. If things go bad after the elections and you don’t have a broad, consensus-based coalition behind you, there’s no safety net to save you. That’s made even more difficult if you start to suffer a credibility gap on issue after issue and crisis after crisis. LBJ’s credibility gap was largely on the issue of the war; Bush seems to battle a new credibility gap on a new issue each week.
Can Bush rebuild some lost support? Possibly. Has he shown the will to do the things necessary try to broaden support enough so that more Americans tune into his arguments and don’t tune him out? So far? No. Which means the prognosis for the administration doesn’t look good.
FOR MORE THOUGHTS also see American Future
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15 Responses to “Is George Bush Sliding Into LBJ Territory On The Iraq War?”
Once you lose credibility it’s all but impossible to get it back. Once you stop believing in Santa Claus you don’t go back to believing again. If he were suddenly to “come clean” it wouldn’t help him with the growing number of non-believers and he would lose the remaining kool-aide drinking cultists.
I’m surprised that Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta (the token Dem in the Bush administration) hasn’t jumped ship by now, if Karl Rove has made the Dem-GOP environment that toxic.
He lost his credibility a few months in, when no WMDs were ever found.
Bush had credibilty? I must have been on vacation that week!
Well the war is going great, Rush says it all the time. The press talks about civil war which doesn’t exist, it’s about imposing traditional values. If we stress stuff like this it will bring back the core:
direland.typepad.com/direland/2006/03/shia_death_squa.html
SHIA DEATH SQUADS TARGET IRAQI GAYS — U.S. Indifferent
Ayatollah_sistani_clear Following a death-to-gays fatwa issued last October by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (left), death squads of the Badr Corps have been systematically targeting gay Iraqis for persecution and execution, gay Iraqis say. But when they ask for help and protection from U.S. occupying authorities in the “Green Zone,� gay Iraqis are met with indifference and derision.
“The Badr Corps is committed to the ‘sexual cleansing’ of Iraq,“ says Ali Hili, a 33-year-old gay Iraqi exile in London who, with some 30 other gay Iraqis who have fled to the United Kingdom, five months ago founded the Abu Nawas Group there to support persecuted gay Iraqis (Abu Nawas — right —Abu_nawas was a great 8th century classical poet of Arab and Persian descent who is known throughout Middle East cultures, and is famous for his poems in praise of same-sex love.)
Said Hili, “We believe that the Badr Corps is receiving advice from Iran on how to target gay people.� In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been carrying out a lethal anti-gay pogrom against Iranian gays, notably through entrapment by Internet — and this tactic has recently begun to be used by the Badr Corps in Iraq to identify and hunt down Iraqi gays.
Sciri_logo The well-armed Badr Corps is the military arm of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the powerful Shia group that is the largest political formation in Iraq’s Shia community, which was headquartered in Tehran until Saddam Hussein‘s fall. The SCIRI’s Badr Corps is trained and commanded by former Iraqi army officers. (Left, the SCIRI logo.)
The Ayatollah Sistani, the 77-year-old Iranian-born cleric who is the supreme Shia authority in Iraq, is revered by SCIRI as its spiritual leader. His anti-gay fatwa (available on Sistani’s official website) says that “people involved� in homosexuality “should be killed in the worst, most severe way of killing.�
Speaking by telephone from London, the Abu Nawas Group’s Hili said that “there is a very, very serious threat to life for gay people in Iraq today. We are receiving regular reports from our extensive network of contacts with underground gay activists and gay people in Iraq — intimidation, beatings, kidnappings and murders of gays have become an almost daily occurrence. The Badr Corps was killing gay people even before the Ayatollah’s fatwah, but Sistani’s murderous homophobic incitement has given a green light to all Shia Muslims to hunt and kill lesbians and gay men.â€?
Hili says,â€?Badr Corps agents have a network of informers who, among other things, target alleged ‘immoral behavior’. They kill gays, unveiled women, prostitutes, people who sell or drink alcohol, and those who listen to western music and wear western fashions.
“Badr militants are entrapping gay men via internet chat rooms. They arrange a date, and then beat and kill the victim. Males who are unmarried by the age of 30 or 35 are placed under surveillance on suspicion of being gay, as are effeminate men. They will be investigated and warned to get married. Badr will typically give them a month to change their ways. If they don’t change their behavior, or if they fail to show evidence that they plan to get married, they will be arrested, disappear and eventually be found dead. The bodies are usually discovered with their hands bound behind their back, blindfolds over their eyes, and bullet wounds to the back of the head.â€?
Baghdad Tahseen is an underground gay activist in Iraq, and a correspondent there for the British Abu Nawas Group. A 31-year-old photography lab technician, Tahseen told me by telephone from Baghdad this weekend that, “Just last week, four gay people we know of were found dead. I am afraid to leave my room and go out in the street because I will be killed. We all live in fear.“ Tahseen said that men who seem obviously gay “cannot walk in the street. My best friend was recently killed for being gay.�
Tahseen confirmed the murderous efficiency of the Badr Corps’ Internet entrapment program. “Within one hour after they meet a gay person in an Internet chat room, that person will disappear and be found dead,� he said, adding that “since Sistani’s fatwa, the life of a gay person is worth nothing here, and the violence and killings have gotten much, much worse.�
Tahseen lives in a Baghdad apartment with his two brothers. “Right now, I have five gay men hiding in my room in fear of their lives, because they cannot go outside without risking being killed,� he said, with anguish audible in his voice. “They are all listening to me as I speak with you.� All those hiding with Tahseen are in their late twenties or early thirties, and by their mannerisms would be easily identified as gay by most Iraqis. I spoke briefly with one of them, who expressed his fear in a soft, shy voice.
One of those being given refuge by Tahseen is Bashar, a 34-year-old stage actor, who was forced to go into hiding after receiving death threats against him and his family. Before he went underground, his house was raided several times by the Badr Corps. Fortunately, he was not at home, otherwise he fears he would have been kidnapped and killed.
“We desperately need protection!� pleaded Tahseen. “But, when we go to the Americans, they laugh at us and don’t do anything. The Americans are the problem!� The Abu Nawas Group’s Hili confirmed from London that representations to officials of the U.S. occupation in Baghdad’s famous “Green Zone� had been made by underground gay activists, only to be met with disdain and indifference.
Hili, who has a bachelor’s degree in English literature, and who used to work for Iraqi radio and television, fled to the U.K. in 2002 after having been persecuted for being Palestine_hotel gay under Saddam Hussein. “In the late ‘80s and early 90s there were a couple of gay clubs in Baghdad, but they were all shut down in 1993 after sanctions were imposed against Saddam’s regime and Iraq. We had a weekly gay nightclub in the Palestine Hotel (right) that became the gathering place for gay people, especially for actors and others in the entertainment world, but it, too, was shut down. I was arrested three times for being gay, and tortured. After several attempts, I finally was able to escape the country, going first to Dubai, then Jordan, then Syria, and finally reaching England.� Now, Hili says, he is heartbroken to see that, three years after Saddam’s fall, life for gay people in Iraq is even more unbearable than before.
“Just last night I spoke via Internet with a young gay man in his mid-20s who was caught by SCIRI agents. He had no identification with him — gay people are afraid to carry their I.D.s when they go in the street in case they are caught,� because both the police and the Badr Corps agents would inform their families and add them to a list of known homosexuals, which would be used later to target them for killing.. “This young man had his left arm broken by the SCIRI thugs — I saw this with my own eyes via Internet camera,� Hili said.
Hili said the Abu Nawas Group is accumulating evidence that Iranian agents are advising SCIRI and the Iranian police on how to implement anti-gay persecution. Not only has Iran’s Internet entrapment campaign targeting gays been adopted in Iraq, he says, but there are reports that Iranian agents have been involved in interrogations, questioning those arrested in Persian through translators. “This is particularly true in Basra in the south,� Hili says.
Hili provided information on the cases of several gay victims of the Badr Corps, but said, “”These killings are just the ones we have been able to get details about. They are the tip of an iceberg of religious-motivated executions. Gay Iraqis are living in fear of discovery and murder.” The victims include:
Haydar_faiek Haydar Faiek (left), aged 40, a transsexual Iraqi, was beaten and burned to death by Badr militias in the main street in the Al-Karada district of Baghdad in September 2005. Ammar
Ammar (right), aged 27, was abducted and shot in back of the head in Baghdad by suspected Badr militias in January 2006.
Naffeh, aged 45, disappeared in August 2005. His family were informed that he was kidnapped by the Badr organisation. His body was found in January 2006. He, too, had been subjected to an execution-style killing.
Sarmad and Khalid were partners who lived in the Al-Jameha area of Baghdad. Persons unknown revealed their same-sex relationship. They were abducted by the Badr organisation in April 2005. Their bodies were found two months later, in June, bound, blindfolded and shot in the back of the head.
Abdel_mahdi The al-Arabiya TV network reported this weekend that a backroom deal had been reached to nominate Abdel Mahdi (left), a leading SCIRI figure and currently Iraq’s vice president, to be the new Iraqi prime minister (the accord is said to have been reached by representatives of SCIRI, the Kurdish list, and the Sunni Iraqi Concord Front.)
There is great fear that the Badr Corps-SCIRI campaign against gay people will become official Iraqi policy, especially if the report that a top SCIRI politican may Zalmay_khalilzad become the new prime minister turns out to be true. Under the Iraqi Constitution — virtually written by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad (right) and his associates — Sharia law, which mandates death for homosexuals, is the foundation of all Iraqi law. Reuters reported last August 20th, under the headline, “U.S. Concedes Ground to Islamists on Iraqi Law,â€? that the U.S. brokered a deal “making Islam ‘the,’ not ‘a,’ main source of law — changing current wording — and subjecting all legislation to a religious test.â€? Reuters quoted a leading Kurdish politician as saying at that time, “’We understand the Americans have sided with the Shi’ites,” he said. “It’s shocking. It doesn’t fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state … I can’t believe that’s what the Americans really want or what the American people want.’”
The fundamental problem with Ignatius’ article is that it rests on a flawed assumption that things in Iraq are going better than they appear. That all Bush needs to do is make a better “case” for the war to the American public. Bush could plausibly make that case as recently as January. In fact, support for the war seemed to rebound after his Plan for Victory speeches in late November. But then the war took an ominous turn with the Samarra shrine bombing. The civil war that has raged for years already got much hotter. Shi’ites and Sunnis started murdering each other at a much greater clip. No longer was the war a struggle between “insurgents” and “the government.” The problem now is that nobody really knows what “victory” looks like anymore. Americans overwhelmingly believe Iraq is in civil war, and that the conflict is not going to work itself out peacefully anytime soon. What the hell is a new communication strategy going to do. We have lost control of the situation in Iraq, and there is nothing we can do to regain it.
I think that you give Bush way too much credit for making decisions. The real decision makers may be reacting as you describe but certainly not Bush. He is a puppet, just along for the ride.
I don’t think any Dems want to work with Bush on the mess in Iraq. Just about every democrat that has tried to work with this president in the past 5+ years has gotten screwed by Bush evenually. It now appears that there is no good out come to be had in Iraq. As much as I had to say it, it may be time to cut and run, and hope that is not worse than staying.
There’s a lot to honor in LBJ’s memory. He got a lot of good things done. I can’t think of anything George W. Bush has done right. (Yes, he stood there while the country rallied around him after 9/11, but it’s been pointed out any occupant of the White House who could read a speech could have done that.)
“History repeats itself; the first time as tragedy, the second time — farce.”
Ron: You know I heard some psychologist talking about the non-linearity of building trust versus losing it – I don’t suppose you know the person I’m talking about. It was interesting because it was a specific experimental measurement of the phenomenon you are describing.
What is wrong in America? I will tell you what is wrong. The American Liberal Press, need I say any more. They are doing the same thing, ( I am talking about the American press) commentating on the war effort in the most negative that they can. There is never enough good news about anything we are doing in Iraq. They are covering the war, just like in Vietnam. I am sure that if the American press as we know it today reported on the war in Europe, public opinion would be the same. I just cannot believe that he people who are supposed to be intelligent people, who supposed to love USA can’t go around and take a pro anti-American stance on everything that we do. These people, who don’t serve in the military on even want to serve in the military sickens me to no end.
Preach on Wallace! I’m still trying to figure out what the hell you just said. Yes, we need more Five O’Clock Follies!!! Oh, and what “war in Europe?” The Seven Years War? The War of Spanish Succession? The Franco-Prussian War? Oh I know, it’s the great Roman-Visigoth War.
The press is one thing the left and right do agree on, it’s always “their” fault.
You lost me after: “What is wrong in America? I will tell you what is wrong.” You might as well have started that out as “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
Republican cuts and pastes his delusional articles with questionable sources, but at least he’s got some flair.
LBJ was plagued by self doubt. Bush, for all his failings, doesn’t have that problem. Even if Iraq gets draped around his neck as an albatross, he isn’t going to notice. Bush won’t be tormented about this, because he genuinely believes that he is right. That’s the critical difference between him and LBJ.