Bush still clueless

Just two months later, on December 19, in an interview with the Washington Post, he proclaimed: "We are not winning, we're not losing in Iraq." And one day later, in his traditional end-of-year news conference in the same White House, he said: "I believe that we're going to win, I believe that ... My comments yesterday reflected the fact that we're not succeeding nearly as fast as I had wanted."

And a further two days later, in his Christmas message to US troops, he said: "I want our troops to know that while the coming year will bring change one thing will not change, and that is our nation's support for you and the vital work you do to achieve a victory in Iraq."

He is visibly confused. At times he talks about "victory," and then suddenly changes the tone and tries to project it as "not losing." He is not clear about the current happenings in Iraq, and he is equally not sure about the future course of events. And this is the most dangerous aspect of the Iraq quagmire.

With a new, hostile Congress knocking at the door, pressure is building up on him from all sides. Some experts are urging him to send more troops to Iraq to gain a victory, while others are calling for withdrawal. Some reports are arguing in favor of a divided Iraq, and some are asking for a united Iraq.

But the problem is congenital in nature. From the very outset, the so-called Iraq strategy was ill-planned, and the defective blueprint that was devised at the whim of hawks like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who, with their xenophobic vision, compelled George W. Bush to send the Marines to Iraq to uproot the Saddam regime, to dig out the weapons of mass destruction so as to safeguard national security interests, and to implant democracy there.

These hawks convinced President Bush, who had little vision of his own of the emerging ground realities in the Middle East, about a quick and prompt victory in Iraq. They were talking about conquering Iraq within weeks and months. They were extremely sure about swift and complete control over Iraq.

Just before the Iraq operation, Donald Rumsfeld proclaimed, "The Gulf War in the 1990s lasted five days on the ground. I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks or five months. But it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that."

This is the message that mesmerized President Bush and kept him from analyzing the situation with a multi-dimensional approach. After initial setbacks, the myopic Bush camp then tried to play the ethnic and sectarian card to divided Iraq. Instead of weakening the resistance, the sectarian and ethnic division has played havoc there.

Today, there is complete mess with no victory in sight for the United States. The Iraqi society has been disintegrated into a quagmire of insecurity, sectarian and ethnic violence, political fragmentation and economic instability.

The Sunni-Shia feud has completely destroyed the very fabric of the Iraqi society. The mutual distrust, insecurity and skepticism has attained indescribable heights -- never heard or imagined of before the arrival of US and its allies in Iraq. Shias and Sunnis are scared of moving, or doing business, in each others' areas. So far, 2.3 million Iraqis have left the country, with 40,000 Iraqi's entering Syria every month.

The average death toll has reached a minimum of 100 a day. According to a survey published in the British Lancet Medical Journal in October, over 600,000 Iraqis have died due to violence after the US-led Iraq invasion. The unofficial reports estimate unemployment at more than 60 percent, with 70 percent inflation in a year, starting from July 2005 to July 2006.

In a recent report, the World Food Program has estimated that, if the situation remains uncontrolled, some 8.3 million Iraqis -- 31 per cent of the total population -- are likely to be bracketed as "food insecure." And, on top of all, the Al Qaeda-sponsored resistance is getting increasingly irrepressible.

The mess created by President Bush and his coterie is extremely dense and intricate. Robert Gates, who went to Iraq last week to have first-hand acquaintance with the situation, must have taken back the message given by the US Marines who almost unanimously urged him to send more troops. Thus bringing more confusion in the Bush camp, which is currently working to overhaul the Iraq strategy.

The recent reports of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) -- spearheaded by James Baker and Lee Hamilton -- and the International Crisis Group, which re-emphasized the withdrawal of troops and initiation of political dialogue with the warring factions and insurgents as the most suitable option, have definitely put President Bush under severe pressure.

The exit of Rumsfeld -- in the wake of the Republicans' electoral defeat -- was the most defining moment in President Bush's approach towards the Iraq problem. He is now forced to show a palpable "shift" in his Iraq strategy, but he has very little time to do so.

But the main concern is that he is seriously confused now. He had no strategy of his own at the beginning of the Iraq operation, and neither does he have any at the moment. His impulsive approach, coupled with the myopic and belligerent inputs from the likes of Condoleezza Rice and other hawks at the Pentagon, has already taken matters to the limits of irreversibility. Everybody is now eagerly waiting for his State of the Union address on January 23.

Dr Imran Khalid is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.