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Date Posted: 02:51:44 09/19/04 Sun
Author: LEAD EDITORIAL
Subject: Newsday

LEAD EDITORIAL


September 19, 2004

One of an occasional series of editorials on issues that ought to be "Hot Topics" in the 2004 presidential campaign.

As the presidential campaign heats up, it has become ominously clear that the war in Iraq has taken a sharp turn for the worse.
The National Intelligence Council has issued a highly classified report with several pessimistic scenarios on the security situation in Iraq. This latest assessment - in stark contrast to optimistic pronouncements from the White House - has determined that, at best, stability in Iraq will remain tenuous and, at worst, a civil war could erupt, turning the conflict into a nightmare for U.S. foreign policy.
The war in Iraq is the proverbial 600-pound gorilla in the Nov. 2 presidential vote. Neither candidate can ignore it or its daunting implications for the future. How Americans perceive the war's progress, or lack of it, may well determine the winner.
But neither President George W. Bush nor his Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, has given voters a clear, credible vision of what should be done in Iraq - what steps need to be taken to win, or how this nation can disengage from this military misadventure without damaging U.S. credibility and prestige beyond repair.
To be fair, not even the most knowledgeable experts in military and political strategy know what scenarios would work in Iraq. But they agree on the extent of the problem: Bush and his national security team grossly underestimated the tenacity and effectiveness of the Iraqi resistance and have dealt with it ineffectively at best. Simply put, the U.S. military has used just enough force against insurgents to enrage Iraqis, but not nearly enough to defeat the resistance.
Meanwhile, emboldened by their successes against U.S. troops and the hapless security forces of the nascent Iraqi government, the insurgents have grown in numbers from a few thousand at the start of the U.S. occupation a year ago to perhaps as many as 80,000 to 100,000 today.
So what to do? How do the candidates differ on possible solutions, and how credible are their proposals? The two vary in their interpretation of the war's course and offer superficially different visions of what it would take to prevail. But both base their projections on wishful thinking.

Bush's rosy assessment
Bush continues to insist that the war is going well and the security picture will improve to the extent that national elections can be held on schedule in Iraq in January. After elections, Bush predicts, democracy will take hold, Iraqis will turn against holdout insurgents, and other nations, particularly Arab allies, will pitch in to help. U.S. troops will remain until Iraqi forces are fully trained, but will gradually pull back.
This rosy, Pollyanna-style scenario appears to be supported by nothing much beyond sheer faith. It's certainly not based on the realistic assessments rendered in the latest National Intelligence Estimate. The only credible part is that U.S. troops are likely to be in Iraq for an indefinite period - and that's if all else goes improbably well.

Kerry's optimistic view
Kerry's critical assessment of the war is far more realistic - he calls it a tactical and strategic disaster so far, and uses it to pound away at Bush at every campaign turn. But his scenario for future success is as unrealistic as Bush's.
Kerry continues to insist that if he were elected president, skeptical and downright hostile U.S. allies like France and Germany would change their attitudes. Seeing in Kerry a more amenable strategic partner, they would have a change of heart and agree to participate actively in rebuilding and securing Iraq.
That is an absurdly optimistic stretch, unsupported by evidence. European diplomats, though agreeing that a Kerry presidency would be far more to their liking, have said that no such help would be coming. With Europe lagging in its economic recovery, the cost of troop deployments would be too high. And domestic opposition to the Iraq war is so fierce that European leaders would be unlikely to send their troops to be bombed and shot. They might pat Kerry on the back and assure him of diplomatic support, but that would be the extent of their help.

Three realistic choices
There are really only three possible scenarios to consider in Iraq. And this is where the candidates may differ.

A phased withdrawal. For the first time, a prestigious international newspaper has advocated a rapid U.S. pullout from Iraq. With more than 1,000 U.S. military deaths and at least 10,000 Iraqis killed (possibly three times that number), mostly civilians, the Financial Times has urged in an editorial that Bush cut his losses and consider a structured withdrawal in conjunction with a handover of security to Iraqi forces. Regardless of this scenario's merits - and prominent figures such as former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski have said they cannot be dismissed - it's a nonstarter with both Bush and Kerry, at least during the campaign. Both have said repeatedly that withdrawal at this time is not an option. One obvious problem: A phased pullout might create a power vacuum that the likes of al-Qaida could exploit.

A maximalist scenario. Some military experts support an all-out effort to crush the Iraqi resistance with ruthless use of vastly superior force - a departure from the vacillating tactics used by U.S. forces that resulted in the failure in the siege of Fallujah. Unshackled by any political concerns for winning hearts and minds, U.S. forces could indeed do massive damage to the resistance. But this would require perhaps double the number of troops now in Iraq, take months to organize, negate the policy of nominal independence granted the interim Iraqi government and incite further anti-American hatred throughout the Arab world.
Kerry would never approve it. But it's not inconceivable that Bush, re-elected, would believe himself to have a mandate for winning at any cost and unleash the neo-conservative dogs of war in his cabinet to embrace this solution.

A gradualist scenario. That's what interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is already using, in tandem with U.S. forces. The idea is to continue giving gradually greater responsibility for security to Iraqi forces, using U.S. troops increasingly for support or to bail out Iraqis in pitched combat. There would be no all-out assaults, but a steady push for political and military gain. It's what Kerry may be most likely to approve in his presidency, at least until those mythical French and German troops come in to take up the slack. The problem is that this scenario is not working very well. But then again, nothing else might work either.

Another Vietnam?
Is Iraq turning into that dreadful cliche, a quagmire - or, more appropriate to its geography, a quicksand bog? It certainly is giving every sign of heading that way. It cannot be equated with the Vietnam war in strategic terms, but it could become Bush's own political Vietnam. Neither Bush nor Kerry offers credible solutions. No scenario is without pitfalls.
So voters are faced with a tough choice. They must overlook facile campaign rhetoric and consider instead which candidate would be best suited - by temperament, judgment, leadership style - to find a most effective, or least damaging, way out of Iraq.

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

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