Robert Novak’s latest weekly report says President George Bush’s speech last week about his new surge/escalation/augmentation policy backfired — and that GOPers on Capital Hill want out of the conflict due to troubling reports from a colleague. He writes:
President Bush’s attempt to sell the new Iraq policy to the nation backfired — the public’s disapproval of the idea of a troop surge is higher now than it was before President Bush tried to sell the policy.
A sense of impending political doom clutches Republican hearts. It is exacerbated by the alarming intelligence brought back from Baghdad by Republican Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.) and passed around Capitol Hill. In a pre-Christmas visit to Iraq, Coleman and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida met with Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi government’s national security adviser. Coleman described their astounding encounter in a December 19 blog post: “Dr. Rubaie maintains that the major challenge facing Iraq is not a sectarian conflict but rather al Qaeda and disgruntled Baathists seeking to regain power. Both Sen. Nelson and I react with incredulity to that assessment. Rubaie cautions against more troops in Baghdad.”
Novak cites other troubling examples of the attitude of Iraq government officials, then writes:
This hastens the desire of Republicans, who once cheered the Bush Doctrine in the Middle East, to remove U.S. forces from a politically deteriorating situation as soon as possible. Iraq, one of Bush’s top political advisers now notes, is a black hole for the Republican Party. A nationally prominent Republican pollster reported confidentially on Capitol Hill after the President’s speech that if U.S. boots are still on the ground in Iraq and U.S. blood is still being spilled there at the end of the year, the GOP disaster in 2008 will eclipse 2006.
So if reports are true that George Bush is steadfast in his determination to essentially stay in Iraq until adjustments in the war plan lead to victory, the stage is set in 2007 for Bush to be at odds with a nearly unified Democratic party and big chunks of his own party.
Keep in mind that Novak has always had excellent Republican sources. And another glaringly significant tidbit he offers is this:
Many Republican congressmen have tied their hopes to Bush’s pledge that Iraqi forces will take over local security by September. But they do not know how that victory can be achieved if the Iraqi government is tied to the Shiite militia, a political problem in Iraq that no increase in U.S. troops can solve. They can only hope that the Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and her sidekick, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), overplay their hands by cutting off funds to U.S. troops in the field. It is a slim hope for now
In other words, his sources don’t think it’s likely Pelosi will gobble the hook with the bait in front her — a hook actually put out there by members of Democratic party itself. If there’s a funding cut off, the GOP will take it, and run with it. But barring that, the outlook for the GOP is gloomy — unless Bush’s surge/escalation/augmentation works or there’s a pulling back of U.S. forces by the end of the year. Novak also correctly notes that any kind of Congressional resolution coming out against the surge, even if it doesn’t have any practical impact, will do one thing: it will widely be seen as a vote of no confidence in Bush.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.