April 18, 2006
Just because you change your staff around by putting your Trade Representative into the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) top position which was vacated recently by the person who is now White House Chief of Staff is merely rearranging the chairs on the deck of a ship. It is not changing policy or being more direct with the American people about what your policy is all about.
Last week, President Bush spoke here at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and talked about “staying the course” because we are doing the right thing in the world by promoting democracy and freedom especially in Iraq and Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East.
The President said in his address that “It is important for Americans to understand the stakes in Iraq.” But, does anyone in the administration understand what these stakes are and, if so, couldn’t they be better at explaining America’s goals in Iraq?
What will be a success for the United States in Iraq? How long do U.S. troops need to stay in Iraq? Is this an open-ended involvement for the U.S.? How much is this going to cost in terms of lives lost and money spent? Are we really spreading democracy throughout the world by our involvement in Iraq?
As the President commented in his Johns Hopkins address, “Yesterday, our nation marked the third anniversary of a great moment in the history of freedom—it was the liberation of Iraq”. It may have been “a great moment” three years ago but why and what are we still doing in Iraq today?
The president and his administration have an obligation to explain in more detail than they are today why we are spending these vast sums of money and committing well over 100, 000 American troops to Iraq. After listening to the president last week and to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (who also spoke at our school last December) I get the impression that they both feel they are on the right course and that is the way it will continue to be. They don’t seem to want to hear other points of view or disagreements with their Iraqi policy.
We need to have many more discussions in Congress, the media and in political debates on what success will be in Iraq for the United States and when and how we can leave by saying we were successful in meeting our goals of ending a brutal dictatorship and bringing democracy to the country. When do the Iraqis take over the running of their country? They had elections and should be applauded for this. But how long and for what reason does the U.S. need to be engaged so actively in this country? Staying the course makes sense if one is on the right course but changing direction is not a sign of failure. It is a sign of statesmanship. The ability to change one’s mind based on the reality on the ground is a sign of leadership and courage.
Americans and our allies need to know how much longer this involvement is going to take in Iraq and it needs to be spelled out much, much better by this administration. There is more to the world than Iraq and our foreign policy needs to be able to get back at looking at the big picture of the world. The president is meeting with the leader of China this week at the White House. This should be a key issue with the administration.
We all need to be told in a series of speeches by the president what is happening and how long we will be in Iraq. Vague notions of spreading democracy don’t jibe with the pictures of violence we see on our television screens every night. Knowing that the U.S. is making sacrifices for a country that can’t even get together and form a working government is not positive. I am surprised there is not more outcry for a new direction in our policy towards Iraq from across the U.S. The administration is way too vague and cavalier in its attitude about spreading freedom and democracy—both admirable goals—but they need to be specific in how we define success for the U.S. in Iraq and how we can leave that country with our goals accomplished. This should not be an open-ended policy. It needs to be defined now.
Does the administration have a policy for the Middle East where a suicide bombing took place yesterday in Tel Aviv? This is the first bombing that took place since Hamas achieved power and their initial reaction to the bombing as an act of “self-defense” is not encouraging. What is the president’s policy of finding a workable peace between Hamas and the Olmert government in Israel? Once again, it needs to be defined and spelled out to the American people and our allies.
And finally, why we have concentrated so many troops in Iraq and so few in Afghanistan is still a puzzle to me. Why have we not done more to capture or remove Osama bin Laden? What happened to the president’s goal of “bringing him to justice or bringing justice to him” that was U.S. policy right after September 11, 2001?
It is hard for the American public to follow the president on his “course” when we do not know what the course is because the administration is too unclear on its goals and enormously incoherent on what will be a U.S. victory/success in Iraq that will allow us to leave.
Remember the “I love Lucy” TV shows when Ricky would say in his Cuban accent to his wife Lucy: “Lucy, you got some “splaining” to do” after one of her schemes didn’t work. The president has some “splaining” to do to the American public since one of his policies doesn’t seem to be working. | 
