Bush's Winning Strategy

Bush's Winning Strategy
By DAVID BROOKS

n Sept. 8, 2003, Bush administration officials awoke to find that Paul Bremer III had written an op-ed piece in The Washington Post laying out a seven-step plan for the democratization of Iraq. Bremer hadn't cleared the piece with his higher-ups in the Pentagon or the White House, and here he was describing a drawn-out American occupation. Iraqis would take their time writing a constitution, and would eventually have elections and take control of their country.

For some Bush officials, this was the lowest period of the entire Iraq project. They knew they couldn't sustain an occupation for that long, yet they had no other realistic plan for transferring power to Iraqis. The Governing Council, with its rotating presidency, was hopeless. The whole thing could fall apart.

Pressure mounted for a quicker transfer of sovereignty. In October, Donald Rumsfeld called Bremer home for all-day consultations on how to get a serious interim Iraqi government. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Shiite leader, was demanding elections much sooner, while the official U.S. position was that they should be put off. "How did we end up not being in favor of elections?" President Bush asked.

Finally, on Nov. 7, Bremer called Condoleezza Rice at a Baltimore Ravens-Cleveland Browns football game. Maybe it was time to transfer sovereignty first, and speed things up. Four days later Bremer was at the White House, for a meeting of the minds. That set in train what became known as the Nov. 15 agreement. Sovereignty would be transferred to Iraqis on June 30, 2004.

The diplomatic corps, the think-tank johnnies and the rest of the commentariate went into their usual sky-is-falling mode. This is pure politics, many said. The U.S. is looking for an exit strategy. Karl Rove doesn't want to fight the next elections with 100,000 troops in Iraq.

In fact, the members of the sneering brigade had it backward. The U.S. had to transfer sovereignty precisely so it could stay. This was the only way to get enough legitimacy to fight the insurgents and work on rebuilding. And from those weeks on, the administration was unwavering in its support of the June 30 transfer.

Politically, at least, its constancy is paying off. Since the transfer I've had candid conversations with four senior officials with responsibility for Iraq. They are more cautiously optimistic than at any time over the past year. One puts the odds of a successful outcome at three to one.

Iraq now has a popular government with a tough, capable prime minister. Democratic institutions are emerging, including a culture of compromise. Clerics are now preaching against insurgents. Sistani calls them sinners, and prohibits cooperation.

Thanks, in part, to Bremer's decisiveness, the political transition is going well. It's when you turn to military matters that things look tough. The Iraqis and the Americans now face a choice. U.S. troops can take advantage of this hopeful moment to mount a full-scale assault on the insurgents, or they can hang back and hope that the Iraqis themselves can co-opt or defeat the fighters.

The choice is made more difficult because after more than a year of occupation, officials complain, we still have little information about who the insurgents are, how they operate or what we can do to defeat them.

Nonetheless, it's clear that, with the Iraqis leading and the Americans assenting, there will be no broad offensive against the insurgents anytime soon. This policy seems to be based on a series of guesses: First, that U.S. aggressiveness only exacerbates the insurgency. Second, that Prime Minister Iyad Allawi can cajole or bribe some insurgents into becoming productive members of society. Third, that Iraqis will be able to build a better intelligence force than the Americans and that anti-insurgency efforts will be more effective when more Iraqis are trained and supplied. Fourth, that insurgents will not be able to use this period, and their impunity in Falluja, to organize even more devastating assaults.

These are all questionable propositions. It could be that in a month, Allawi and Bush will have to unleash U.S. forces. Still, stepping back, two things are obvious. This administration can adapt, and stick to a winning strategy once it finds it. Second, the Iraqis really do have a galvanizing hunger for democracy.

Despite the normal flow of bad news, that makes the long-term prospects for success brighter than they appeared a few months ago.

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The Benefits of United Republican Government, Part 2

In 1995 the Republican Congress passed a budget resolution designed to reduce growth in Medicare spending by 270 billion dollars over a seven year period, cut federal taxes by over 200 billion dollars and eliminate several outdated and obsolete social programs. Democrat President Bill Clinton used his Presidential veto power to prevent these fiscal reforms from becoming law and he succeeded.

This was divided government in action, frustrating an attempt to put the federal government on a shorter leash.

In January 2002, shortly after the September 11th terrorists attacks, President Bush wanted Congress to pass an economic growth package containing tax credits and acceleration in income tax rate reductions. The US House, controlled by Republicans, quickly passed an economic growth package. The US Senate, led by Democrat Tom Daschle, limited itself to passing an extension of unemployment compensation. When President Bush asked leader Daschle for cooperation on economic stimulus legislation and mentioned the struggling American economy, Daschle responded "We don't need an economic stimulus package. You need an economic stimulus package."

This was divided government in action or, perhaps more accurately, inaction. It wasn't until the summer of 2003, after Republicans had regained the majority in the US Senate in January 2003, that an economic stimulus package became law. The stock market boomed and the economy began growing at its fastest pace in almost 20 years.

There are many Republicans in Congress and many members of the Bush administration who want to make the Bush tax cuts permanent (they are due to expire at the end of the decade and their expiration would result in a massive tax increase on the American economy) and reform entitlement programs. The reason why there are no immediate plans by Republicans to enact this agenda is because an election is coming up in less than 5 months and because they probably lack the votes to enact this agenda given the narrow 51 to 49 seat majority that they enjoy in the US Senate.

Clearly, it seems to me, the road toward a more fiscally responsible federal government doesn't call for electing more Tom Daschles and Hillary Clintons to the US Senate but, rather, electing more conservatives to the US Senate, people like Jim DeMint in South Carolina and Herman Cain in Georgia. And electing John Kerry to the White House will not advance an agenda of tax reduction and entitlement reform either. It's far more likely that a newly reelected President Bush matched with a US Senate featuring a larger Republican majority will propose such an agenda.

In Colorado, reductions in the state income tax, enactment of a concealed car weapons law and reform of state health insurance regulation affecting small businesses did not happen during the 22 years of divided government (when Democrats occupied the governor's mansion from 1975 through 1999 while the Republicans controlled both houses of the legislature from 1977 through 1999). No, these reforms occurred after Republican Bill Owens was elected governor in 1998 by a few thousand votes and only when the Republicans controlled the Governorship, the state Senate and the state House simulaneously. It's time conservatives and libertarians realized, if they haven't already, that united Republican government represents the best hope for their agenda being enacted.

The Benefits of United Republican Government, Part 1

Many people who are politically right of center have expressed the view that their agenda is better served by divided government compared to united Republican government.

Just to get our terms straight, I define divided government as existing when one political party controls one of the political power bases (The White House, the United States House of Representatives or the United States Senate), while the other political party controls the other two political power bases. For example, the 8 years of the Reagan Presidency was a period of divided government because the Democrats controlled the US House during that entire period and controlled the US Senate during its final two years.

The Democrats enjoyed united government under their party's control during the fist 14 years of the FDR-Truman years, all 8 of the JFK-Johnson years, all 4 of the Carter Presidency and the first 2 of the Clinton Presidency.

Except for the first 2 years of the Eisenhower Presidency, the Republican party had not enjoyed united Republican government under their party's control in the post New Deal era until 2001, when the United States Senate was controlled by the GOP due to Vice President Dick Cheney's ministerial role as President of the Senate. But, that period of united Republican government lasted less than 5 months and ended when Jim Jeffords, a Republican Senator from Vermont, changed parties and handed the Senate to Democrats. In the mid-term elections of 2002 the Republicans regained control of the United States Senate and, thus, another period of united Republican government began.

I believe that united Republican government better serves the interests of people who are politically right of center than does divided government and I will explain why this is so in part 2 of this post.

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