Crawford, Texas – President Bush went to his ranch Tuesday to rethink U.S. involvement in Iraq as his spokesman hailed a Baghdad court’s decision upholding the death sentence for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
“Today marks an important milestone in the Iraqi people’s efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law,” deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel told reporters aboard Air Force One to Texas, where Bush was to meet this week with his national security team.
Bush, saddled with low approval ratings for his handling of Iraq, will host a National Security Council meeting Thursday at the ranch but is not expected to make any final decision on what he says will be a new way forward in Iraq.
Bush has spent weeks figuring out a new war plan in Iraq. All the while, the American public’s expectations have been headed in one direction – up. Anticipation is high not just because people are weary of war, but also because of the way Bush has gone about deciding his next move.
Saddled with a reputation for stubbornness, Bush has gone the other direction. He has made a visible effort to seek advice – from the military, diplomats, academics, retired generals, a special study commission, Iraqi officials, Republican leaders, even Democrats he once ridiculed.
By the time he announces his Iraq plan in January, roughly two months will have passed since a humbling election for Republicans brought a promise of a “new way forward.”
“He has built up expectations,” said David Gergen, a former White House adviser in the administrations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. “People are saying, ‘OK, if you’ve spent all this time and effort on it, you better have a pretty darn good plan.”‘
The ostensible goal of that plan will be to get Iraq on a path to govern itself and help the U.S. fight terrorism. Bush is also out to win back some of the American people, who want to know the war has an end in sight.
Recent history shows the trouble with high expectations.
The Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission of Washington elders, this month offered Bush a stark, comprehensive plan to change course. It was so highly anticipated that when it was not embraced by the White House in its entirety, it seemed to fall flat and fade from view.
Bush now faces his own test of great expectations, largely of his own doing. He has promised a new approach, yet even his new defense secretary, Robert Gates, has acknowledged that “there are no new ideas in Iraq.”
Indeed, some of the main ideas under consideration – sending in more troops, embedding more U.S. advisers in Iraqi units, engaging in more aggressive diplomacy – aren’t novel. And if Bush does come up with a remarkably fresh approach after nearly four years of war, that will raise the question of why he hadn’t thought of it before.
Even with that seemingly no-win set of expectations, the president does have room to succeed, some say – as long as the plan is new to him.
