How to make an honest case for Iraq

IT’S BEEN A bleak few months for those in the Bush administration. It’s become clear that they’re not good at fighting counterinsurgencies in Iraq. They’re not good at handling natural disasters. They’re not good at managing the budget. They’re not even good at avoiding indictments.

What are they good at? Oh, yes: running against John Kerry.

Of course, this isn’t a very difficult task, but you have to go with your strengths. And so President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney last week took after Kerry in a series of speeches on Iraq. As David Kusnet, speechwriter for President Clinton, has pointed out, it is rare and probably unprecedented for a president to attack his vanquished foe. Clinton awarded a medal to Bob Dole after beating him in 1996.

The point here isn’t to defend poor, put-upon Kerry. In fact, Kerry, who persists in his bizarre delusion that he has a chance to win the 2008 nomination, is thrilled to have his profile raised. Kerry and Bush have a shared interest in making you believe that if you don’t like George W. Bush, you must like John Kerry.

The reason Bush wants to do this, of course, is that he’s an unpopular president. He just had the good fortune of running for reelection against a pitiful and hard-to-like foe. He seems to have given up on making the public approve of him and has fallen back on reminding them that they really hate Kerry.

The people who should be most alarmed at this are those who support the war in Iraq. An effective war leader could rally the country behind shared goals. Bush obviously thinks that his only chance is to rally his own base against a common domestic enemy. The speeches by Bush and Cheney were laced with unmistakable attacks on the patriotism of his Democratic critics. What gives the game away is the fact that Bush coupled his new line of attack with a call for an anti-flag-burning amendment to the Constitution. Has there been a single reported flag burning anywhere in this country since Bush took office? No, endorsing the amendment apropos of nothing had no purpose but to associate his domestic opposition with America-haters.

The sad thing is that there is, or was, a prospect to get Democrats onboard with the war effort. I believe that liberals loathe the war because they loathe Bush, rather than vice versa. What they want above all is for Bush to admit he made some huge mistakes in Iraq. It’s not a big thing to admit; everybody knows it’s true.

A simple admission of the obvious would sate his foes -- or enough of them, anyway. That would also let Bush make the honest case for carrying on in Iraq. That case is that Iraq is in danger of becoming a failed state and terrorist haven, like Afghanistan. Yes, our invasion caused it to be so, but here we are. If terrorists gain access to Iraq’s state power and oil wealth, we’ll face dire consequences down the road. The liberals and moderates who supported the war in Afghanistan would support a campaign in Iraq that’s based on similar grounds.

Of course, this strategy would also require the administration to care more about building support for the war than propping up the myth of Bush as courageous and indispensable war leader. I guess we know which one of those things this White House cares about more.