News Analysis: Bush's Iraq Plan

President Bush recently gave an address to the United States about “new” strategies for the Iraq war. Immediately people from around the world voiced their opinions about whether his plan would work or not. Most opinion in the U.S. was negative, even from his own Republican base, such as Kansas Senator Brownback, who is by no means a liberal Republican. Whether or not Bush’s plans will work is yet to be seen but it’s safe to say that in all likelihood the plans will most likely fall short of their stated objective. While I see the prudent and wise arguments that pulling troops out of Iraq will lead to a bloodbath (all though that bloodbath is going on as we speak) and will make Iraq a haven for terrorists even more than it is, at the same time, will leaving troops in Iraq make a difference at all? It seems to me that the point America is in right now was the point we were in with Vietnam during the period between 1967-1968. Back then it was argued that if we pulled troops out it would lead to a domino effect and that communism would overtake all of Southeast Asia. Yet the cost for keeping our troops there was also high. In the end the U.S. ended up pulling out, which lead many to state that if they ended up pulling out fully in 1975 why not have pulled out when it was being argued that it would have been wise to pull out, such as in1967. With Iraq it seems that there is really only two realistic choices: (1) either stay in Iraq and try and quell the violence, which will most likely not work, and end up staying in the country for another decade or so. And even if we end up choosing that option we will end up pulling out regardless, and it will more than likely be a pull out due to the situation in Iraq getting so bad that there was no choice but to pull out. Or, (2) we pull out troops now while we still can. Yet if we pull out troops now there will always be that “what if” nagging at the back of many peoples minds, such as “What if we had stayed in Iraq? Would the full brink civil war have been avoided?” I believe that if we do end up staying in the country it will be at the costs of many Iraqi and U.S. lives and that in the end, we will have to pull out due to ever increasing violence. Below is a selection of news articles and editorials from around the world on Bush’s Iraq speech.

North America:

Christian Science Monitor
Jan. 12, 2007
Bush's Iraq Plan: Is It Enough?
By Howard LaFranchi
WASHINGTON – The first of 21,500 additional American troops are set to arrive in Iraq as early as next week - a prospect that could allow President Bush to blunt congressional opposition to his new plan while reassuring allies in the region that the US is not about to give up the fight.

But what had been billed ahead of Mr. Bush's speech as a major strategy shift is turning out to be more a set of tactical adjustments for addressing Iraq's deteriorating security...(Read More)

Los Angeles Times
Jan. 15, 2007
Bush's Plan to Add Troops Fueling Iraq Insurgency, Sunni Scholar Says
By Borzou Daragahi
MMAN, JORDAN — President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq has inflamed passions among the restive Sunni Arab minority, bringing new recruits to insurgent cells and outpourings of popular anger toward the U.S., the spokesman for the country's most hard-line Sunni clerical group declared Sunday.

"Iraq is like a fire," said Mohammed Bashar Faidi, spokesman for the Muslim Scholars Assn. "Instead of putting water on the fire, Bush is pouring gasoline."...(Read More)

New York Times
Jan. 14, 2007
Picking Up the Pieces
Editorial

It was surreal how disconnected President Bush was the other night, both from Iraq’s horrifying reality and America’s anguish over this unnecessary, mismanaged and now unwinnable war. Indeed, most Americans seem far ahead of the president. They understand that what the country urgently needs is for Mr. Bush to chart a way out of Iraq that also limits the chaos that will be left behind.

The president’s disconnect goes far to explain the harshly critical reaction of Congress and the public to his plan to further bleed America’s overstretched forces by sending some 20,000 additional troops in an attempt to impose peace on Baghdad’s vengeful streets. He proposes to do that without any enforceable commitments from the Iraqi government that it will take the necessary political steps that are the only hope for tamping down a spiraling civil war...(Read More)

Washington Post
Jan. 12, 2007
Fight and Talk
Editorial
PRESIDENT BUSH promised in his speech Wednesday night to "use America's full diplomatic resources" in support of his new plan to stabilize Iraq. But the tour of the region that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is beginning today looks like a sideshow. Ms. Rice will talk with Israelis and Palestinians and meet with ministers from Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states; her idea, she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, is "to work with those governments that share our idea of where the Middle East should be going." Since that excludes two of Iraq's neighbors, Iran and Syria, as well as the two countries that now stand in the way of progress in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon -- again, Iran and Syria -- it's hard to see how her diplomacy can accomplish much...(Read More)

Middle East:

Middle East Online
Jan. 15, 2007
Top U.S. Officials: No Gurantee of Baghdad Success
BAGHDAD - A new US plan to boost American forces and secure Baghdad will target Iranian and Syrian networks in Iraq but its success is not guaranteed, top US officials said in the Iraqi capital on Monday.

The plan presented by US President George W. Bush last week has "no guarantees of success and it's not going to happen overnight," General George Casey acknowledged...(Read More)

Daily Star (Lebanon)
Jan. 12, 2007
Bush Admits Mistakes in the Past But Signs on for More in the Future
Editorial
In the earliest days of the invasion of Iraq, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who has recently been appointed as the top US military commander in Iraq, would repeatedly pose a riddle to a Washington Post reporter embedded in his unit: "Tell me how this ends." Four years later, the answer to Petraeus' puzzle remains as elusive as it was in the earliest days of war.

US President George W. Bush has again suggested that Iraqis will witness a happy ending to the four-year war. The president has unveiled a "new way forward" for Iraq, a strategy that draws heavily, although not entirely, from a field manual on counterinsurgency prepared by Petraeus. The manual wisely advises that battling insurgents requires the kind of patience and intelligence hitherto unseen in US military strategies...(Read More)

Haaretz (Israel)
Jan. 15, 2007
U.S. Says It Will "Go After" Iran, Syria Networks in Iraq
BAGHDAD - The United States plans to "go after" what it said were networks of Iranian and Syrian agents in Iraq, U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Monday.

"We're going after their networks in Iraq," he told a news conference, as he laid out the new U.S. and Iraqi strategy to end sectarian violence at what Khalilzad called a "defining moment" for Iraq...(Read More)

Europe:

UK Guardian
Jan. 12, 2007
"America Is No Longer In the Driving Seat"
By Ian Black and Michael Howard
Iran and Syria both angrily denounced the US plan to send more troops to Iraq, complaining it would only prolong the "occupation" and extend insecurity in the country and the wider Middle East. But there was official silence coupled with signs of popular hostility in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, America's closest Arab allies. No one foresaw a US success.

With US-Iranian tensions running high after the arrest of Iranian diplomats by US forces in Kurdistan yesterday, Tehran stuck to its script in condemning George Bush's new approach. Syria, Iran's only Arab ally, followed suit. "Bush's strategy will be another catastrophe and the Iraqi people will be the only loser," predicted the state-run Syrian paper Tishrin. The country's vice-president, Farouk al-Sharaa, had already warned that the troop surge would only "pour oil on the fire"...(Read More)

Moscow Times
Jan. 17, 2007
Saudis Back U.S. Troop Increase
By Andrew Hammond (Rueters)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi officials told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday that Arab countries were ready to back a U.S. plan to stabilize Iraq, but that success was the responsibility of the Iraqi government.

"We agree fully with the goals set by the new strategy, which in our view are the goals that -- if implemented -- would solve the problems that face Iraq," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at a joint news conference...(Read More)

South Asia:

Dawn (Pakistan)
Jan. 17, 2007
No End to Bush War Blues
By Mahir Ali
LAST month, the executioners of Saddam Hussein pulled off a small miracle when they succeeded in inducing a brief twinge of sympathy for the doomed dictator. Last week, some people found it hard not to feel at least a tiny bit sorry for another mass murderer as he stood there in the White House, determinedly digging himself deeper into a hole that no sensible person would have stepped into in the first place.

There was more than a hint of desperation last Wednesday in one of the most anticipated pronouncements of George W. Bush’s pathetic presidency. The gist of his 20-minute oration had been leaked by the White House over the preceding couple of weeks, so everyone knew about the coming surge, although the presidential speechwriters calculatedly left out that catchword. Nor did Bush mention the purge leading up to the surge, whereby the main military and civilian figures in charge of the occupation have been replaced. He concentrated instead on supplementing a dirge about the possibility of defeat with an overture to the Sunni side of the street...(Read More)

Times of India
Jan. 15, 2007
Give Alternative Iraq Plan, Bush Dares Critics
By Associated Press
WASHINGTON: US president Bush on Saturday challenged lawmakers sceptical of his new Iraq plan to propose their own strategy for stopping the violence in Baghdad. "To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible," Bush said.

In a pitch to lawmakers and the American people, Bush said the US will keep the onus on the Iraqi government to take charge of security and reach a political reconciliation. He countered Democrats and his fellow Republicans who argue that Bush is sending 21,500 more US troops into Iraq on the same mission...(Read More)

Pacific:

New Zealand Herald
Jan. 16, 2007
This Plan Will Be Different, Says US Chiefs in Iraq
By Claudia Parsons

BAGHDAD - Washington's top general and diplomat in Iraq conceded today that past experience might breed doubts about a new US-backed Iraqi security plan for Baghdad but they insisted this time will be different.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist, announced the plan a week ago and President Bush has pledged 21,500 extra troops, most for Baghdad, saying the plan's success will "in large part determine the outcome in Iraq"...(Read More)

Sydney Morning Herald
Jan. 11, 2007
Howard Briefed on New Strategy
By Cynthia Banham

THE Prime Minister, John Howard, has been given a privileged presidential briefing on the new US plan for Iraq, but has been spared a demand from Washington to contribute more troops to the military effort.

George Bush shared his revised strategy with Mr Howard in a telephone conversation yesterday morning. They spoke for 20 minutes, a spokesman for Mr Howard said, and Mr Bush gave the Prime Minister "an assessment of the situation in Iraq"...(Read More)