Despite the urgency of the Iraqi dossier, President George Bush has decided to hasten slowly. The Baker Commission report was handed to him on December 6. Among the 79 recommendations, sometimes contradictory, one of them suggests considering a gradual withdrawal of combat troops by 2008. Dubbed by the international press as a “policy review” of the approach previously followed in Iraq, these conclusions seemed to considerably reduce the American President’s flexibility, who anticipated the effects by parting ways with Donald Rumsfeld, his main ally in his strategy. The euphoria, always swift when it does not consider the passing of time in evaluating a political event, of opponents to US diplomacy was also remembered the day after the Democrats’ victory in Congress. People were already mocking the “Lame Duck” reduced to counting the days left in his Oval Office. In the first press conference held by the head of the Administration after recognizing his defeat, observers noted, with enthusiasm, the sudden disappearance from his vocabulary of expressions like “war on terror” or “defeat terror,” which had abundantly fed his rhetoric since September 11, 2001. Lastly, and importantly, two-thirds of Americans were now convinced that America would not win the war and that it should disengage. So?
The White House leader is quietly continuing his consultations and postponing his address to Americans on this subject to early next year. Without inciting any disapprovals, let alone criticisms. He meets with experts, strategists, and generals, some of whom seek to convince him to strengthen the already deployed soldiers in Iraq for one last short period, with two goals: ensuring the security of the Iraqi capital and accelerating the training of police forces of the new State. It turns out that the support President Bush lost in America, he suddenly gained abroad. Right after its publication, the Baker-Hamilton report sparked strong criticism from Baghdad. The Iraqi President of Kurdish origin, Jalal Talabani, though well-versed in political contortions during his leadership of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in rebellion against Saddam Hussein, outright rejected its conclusions. A disengagement of American forces would not only deprive the Kurds of a balancing role between Sunnis and Shiites from which they had greatly benefited with Washington. Advocates of regional autonomy for Kurdistan in Iraq, the Kurds would see little of it in the case of American withdrawal. The Iraqi Vice President, a Sunni, also came to plead with Washington not to pack up too quickly. Without their counterbalance, increasingly bloody sectarian settlements with the Shiites, majority and armed by Iran, would leave the Sunnis with little chance of regaining a political role granted by the new Iraqi constitution. They feel so threatened that they have sounded the alarm to their Saudi co-religionists. Riyadh almost “summoned” Vice President Cheney to clearly state that King Abdullah would support his Sunni brothers financially but also militarily if necessary. The importance of this position can be measured against the effects of Wahhabi aid to the Algerian FIS in the early 90s. The issue is sensitive enough to have caused, within days, the resignation of a counselor at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, Nawaf Obaid, who initially publicized this option, shortly followed by the recent unexplained return of the Ambassador to his country.
And as “misfortune never comes alone,” the American Senate Democrats discover the fragility of their majority upon the sudden hospitalization of Tim Johnson, their colleague from South Dakota. His potential replacement would then be appointed by the State’s Republican Governor. In the case of a tie, Vice President Cheney’s vote would tilt the balance in favor of the Republicans. Not to mention that two of the 51 Democratic senators (from Connecticut and Vermont) were elected under an independent label. Not forgetting that some Democratic senators (from Nebraska or Rhode Island) have, in the past year, voted against their Party more than once. Finally, the upcoming inauguration in January of a new UN Secretary-General, presumably more sensitive to nuclear dangers due to his South Korean origin, could be another advantage.
In these conditions, one can understand President Bush’s “calm” circumspection: it offers him an appreciable respite in this dossier strongly marked by its personal dimension. Iraq has been his war. It now challenges the new majority, showing that wanting is not enough to achieve. After all, if the Democrats decided to unilaterally withdraw the troops from Iraq without considering the risks faced by the population, if they were to resume relations with the Syrian or Iranian regimes, nonetheless criticized by the international community, they would act no differently – that is to say, unilaterally – than the one they have constantly criticized since ascending to the White House. Upon his departure from the UN, Kofi Annan made a point of recalling America to its role of “perceptive leadership.” American supremacy exerts itself in a way that no other power on the planet can claim in a similar exercise. Republicans and Democrats alike. For better or worse.
