Washington – In the 4 1/2 years since the invasion of Iraq, President Bush most often has defined his objective there with a single, stirring word: “victory.”
“Victory in Iraq is vital for the United States of America,” he told cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in May. “Victory in this struggle will require more patience, more courage and more sacrifice,” he warned National Guardsmen in West Virginia in July.
But this week, the word “victory” disappeared from the president’s lexicon. It was replaced by a slightly more ambiguous goal: “success.”
“The success of a free Iraq is critical to the security of the United States,” Bush said Thursday evening in a brief address from the Oval Office.
“Now, because of the measure of success we are seeing in Iraq, we can begin seeing troops come home,” he said.
Bush’s description of his war aims reflected two hard realities of his position in Iraq.
First, a large majority of the American public does not believe “victory” is possible in Iraq. Dozens of opinion polls have found that fewer than 40 percent of voters think the war can be won.
Second, the men who are running the war – Army Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker – made it clear this week before Congress that their immediate goals are more limited than “victory.” Where the United States once hoped for a peaceful, united Iraq governed by a Western- style parliament, Petraeus and Crocker described more modest goals: reducing sectarian violence, avoiding all-out civil war and encouraging local self-rule with a strong role for unelected tribal sheiks.
A senior official said the two men deliberately had chosen to be “minimalist” in their promises, recognizing that past talk of victory had left many Americans disillusioned or doubtful.
The formal reason for the president’s speech was to endorse Petraeus’ proposal to begin a long-planned troop drawdown slightly ahead of schedule.
But Bush’s underlying aim was to regain the initiative in Washington’s political battles over the deeply unpopular war – by convincing Americans the military effort is making progress, that patience and persistence will make further troop withdrawals possible, and that there is, in short, a light at the end of the tunnel.
“The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is ‘return on success,”‘ Bush said. “The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home.”
The White House’s challenge, a former aide said, is to convince Americans that any kind of success is possible in Iraq.
Bush must “overcome a fair amount of skepticism in the conventional wisdom, which thinks all experts believe it is hopeless,” said Peter D. Feaver, a professor at Duke University who worked on Iraq policy at the National Security Council.
“They’re still making the two basic points: One, we can win – something like success is still possible. Two, the consequences of failure are so bad we should be willing to pay a price to win.”
