From the Evans-Novak Political Report comes this commentary on the proposed "troop surge:"...President Bush's attempt to sell the new Iraq policy to the nation backfired -- the public's disapproval of the idea of a troop surge is higher now than it was before President Bush tried to sell the policy.
A sense of impending political doom clutches Republican hearts. It is exacerbated by the alarming intelligence brought back from Baghdad by Republican Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.) and passed around Capitol Hill. In a pre-Christmas visit to Iraq, Coleman and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida met with Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi government's national security adviser. Coleman described their astounding encounter in a December 19 blog post: "Dr. Rubaie maintains that the major challenge facing Iraq is not a sectarian conflict but rather al Qaeda and disgruntled Baathists seeking to regain power. Both Sen. Nelson and I react with incredulity to that assessment. Rubaie cautions against more troops in Baghdad."
In other words, the Iraqi government is denying the obvious reality of sectarian violence on the ground, acting as though nothing has changed about the Iraq insurgency since it began. The reason is that despite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's lip service to cracking down on Shiite militants, his government's political support is inextricably tied to their military leader, Moqtada al-Sadr. Maliki's failure even to show up for a scheduled press conference to comment on Bush's new strategy, and his continued silence, underscore this fact..
This hastens the desire of Republicans, who once cheered the Bush Doctrine in the Middle East, to remove U.S. forces from a politically deteriorating situation as soon as possible. Iraq, one of Bush's top political advisers now notes, is a black hole for the Republican Party. A nationally prominent Republican pollster reported confidentially on Capitol Hill after the President's speech that if U.S. boots are still on the ground in Iraq and U.S. blood is still being spilled there at the end of the year, the GOP disaster in 2008 will eclipse 2006.
Many Republican congressmen have tied their hopes to Bush's pledge that Iraqi forces will take over local security by September. But they do not know how that victory can be achieved if the Iraqi government is tied to the Shiite militia, a political problem in Iraq that no increase in U.S. troops can solve. They can only hope that the Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and her sidekick, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), overplay their hands by cutting off funds to U.S. troops in the field. It is a slim hope for now...
