The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal had sharply different reactions to Bush’s speech.
____________________
It should come as no surprise that the Times was harshly critical, claiming that (1) the President is out of touch with the American public, (2) the “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” is “a rehash of the same tired argument that everything’s going just fine,” (3) the picture painted of the Iraq military’s progress is optimistic and misleading, (4) training Iraqi forces well enough to free American forces for more search-and-destroy sweeps will “accomplish little beyond alienating the populace,” (5) and his goals are “the most grandiose set of ambitions for the region since the vision of Nebuchadnezzar’s son Belshazzar.”
Of course, there’s the obligatory reference to Vietnam:
Mr. Bush hates comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq. But after watching the president, we couldn’t resist reading Richard Nixon’s 1969 Vietnamization speech. Substitute the Iraqi constitutional process for the Paris peace talks, and Mr. Bush’s ideas about the Iraqi Army are not much different from Nixon’s plans – except Nixon admitted the war was going very badly (which was easier for him to do because he didn’t start it), and he was very clear about the risks and huge sacrifices ahead.
The editorial concludes with these words:
A president who seems less in touch with reality than Richard Nixon needs to get out more.
Methinks the Times doth protest too much. It’s the Times that’s lost touch with reality. There’s nothing—nothing—Bush could say that would satisfy its editors. Had he announced an immediate and total withdrawal, the Times would have lambasted him for money that was spent and lives that were lost in vain.
____________________
The tone of the Post’s editorial is far more measured, as it raises some real issues, asks some valid questions, and is critical of the Democrats’ position on troop withdrawals. And there’s no mention of Vietnam.
The issues:
To abandon Iraq while the country’s emerging leaders are still trying to hammer together a workable political system would be a disaster for U.S. interests around the world. At the same time, the U.S. military cannot maintain its present force levels in Iraq much longer without unpalatable measures, such as sending units for fourth and fifth tours or mobilizing more of the National Guard. Iraqi leaders themselves recognize that they must win the war with their own forces; they recently signed an agreement endorsing a timetable for American withdrawal.
[ . . . ] Every plan the administration has prepared, starting with the original invasion, has been based on overly optimistic assumptions and insufficient resources. Now, once again, the strategy supposes a series of successes in the next 12 months that approach the miraculous: the appearance of tens of thousands of capable Iraqi troops; the brokering of a political accord among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds; the formation of a workable democratic government; an acceleration of reconstruction; a significant decline of the insurgency; and a 40 percent reduction of U.S. forces.
The questions:
. . . what if Iraqi leaders refuse to compromise, and instead split the country into several pieces? What if Iraqi forces fail to control the insurgency in the areas where they have taken over?
The Democrats:
By clamoring for a more rigid and specific troop withdrawal timetable—or an immediate pullout—Democrats merely raise the risk of failure.
I’m willing to believe that the Post’s editors—unlike their counterparts at the Times—actually read the “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.”
____________________
The Journal’s editorial is the most optimistic of the three. Near its end, the editorial says that
The larger story here is that there are reasons for optimism in Iraq. Current U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad leads the best diplomatic team since the liberation in 2003, Iraqi forces are getting into the fight, all ethnic groups are participating in the democratic process, and Iraqi political leaders are emerging who can lead a newly elected government.
Earlier, the editors focused on the details of the U.S. military strategy, especially the training of Iraqi forces:
There are now more than 120 battle-ready Iraqi police and Army battalions “in the fight” and ready to assume more responsibility as long as there is a stable Iraqi government to lead them, he said.
And [Bush] justifiably pointed to the early fall offensive that cleaned up Tal Afar and allowed its residents to vote in the October Constitutional referendum. Iraqi forces led that fight, and they have stayed as part of a “clear, hold and build” strategy that is sure to be repeated in other parts of the Sunni Triangle. While no Iraqi battalions “owned” their own battlespace in mid-2004, some 33 do now. This includes the units patrolling Haifa Street and other once troublesome neighborhoods in Baghdad.
[ . . . ] General Martin Dempsey told us from Baghdad yesterday that not a single Iraqi Army or police unit has folded in battle this year the way some did during the spring 2004 violence. He added that about 4,000 former Iraqi officers have responded to a recent recruitment drive, a sign that they see their future residing with a democratic Iraq and not their old Baathist masters.
