A few days ago, I wrote that I believed we were at a critical point of the War in Iraq. I discussed several disturbing trends that pointed to a worsening situation on the battlefield as well as a steady erosion of the President’s support here at home. I thought that part of the problem was that the President seems disengaged from the war at this point, allowing surrogates to make his case for staying the course in Iraq for him. I pointed out that only the President can really grab the attention of the American people and hold it long enough to explain what the benefits are if we succeed and the catastrophic consequences of failure.

In short, it appears to me that things have been allowed to slide, to limp along with us pinning our hopes on the idea that an improvement in the political situation will alter the combat situation for the better. This is unacceptable. As is the notion being floated in Washington that political progress will be used as a cover to draw down our troops in what could only be termed a riverboat gamble that the country would then not slide into sectarian conflict, or worse.

Over the next week or so, I am going to expand on the themes I brought up a few days ago. It’s time for those of us who support victory in Iraq – call us “the bitter enders” – to step forward and demand that both the vital interests of the United States and the memory of those who have sacrificed so much in our name be honored in fighting this war to the bitter end and winning through to a clear victory.

THE POLITICAL CRISIS

There are two things the President can do almost immediately to improve the domestic political situation as it relates to the war:

1. Re-engage on the issue by getting in the face of the American people and not letting up.

During the campaign last fall, Bush drove his political opponents to distraction by making the war the central news story of the day every day. While the campaign for office is over, the campaign to convince the American people that what we’re doing in Iraq is vital to national security never ends. In this respect, the American people need to be told the hard truth about Iraq instead of the rose colored glasses version we seem to get when ever Rumsfeld or Cheney opens their mouths about the war. Yes, we like to hear about all the schools being built and hospitals re-opened but we also need to hear about the growing movement for Shia autonomy in the south, the failure of our recent offensives in the Sunni triangle to make a dent – a real dent in the potency of the insurgency, the sectarian militias springing up all over the country that’s so reminiscent of Lebanon of the 1970’s, and the increasing deadliness and sophistication of our enemy’s attacks.

I personally would like to see a little more than stiff, diplomatic notes delivered to Syria and Iran for their meddling in both the politics of the country and their support for the murderous jihadists who are responsible for killing most of the civilians in Iraq. It’s past time that some kind of warning – short of an ultimatum but stronger than the demarches that we dole out on a regular basis – be given to both Iran and Syria. And for good measure, call in the new Saudi Ambassador and remind him that while we value Saudi friendship (and a wide open oil spigot) political reform has a nasty habit of being contagious and that a more intense effort to close their border with Iraq to terrorists would be appreciated.

Being brutally honest is only a start. The President must draw a picture of what a failed state brimming with fanatical jihadists smack dab in the center of the middle east would do both to our regional security interests and security for our homeland. These are the consequences of failure. At the moment, the cut and run crowd is in the ascendancy because there’s no counter to their argument that at least once we’re out, Americans will stop dying.

Henry Kissinger sums up the consequences succinctly:

Because of the long reach of the Islamist challenge, the outcome in Iraq will have an even deeper significance than that in Vietnam. If a Taliban-type government or a fundamentalist radical state were to emerge in Baghdad or any part of Iraq, shock waves would ripple through the Islamic world. Radical forces in Islamic countries or Islamic minorities in non-Islamic states would be emboldened in their attacks on existing governments. The safety and internal stability of all societies within reach of militant Islam would be imperiled.

In other words, failure in Iraq would be a massive blow to our efforts in fighting the Global War on Terror.

2. De-fang the political opposition here at home.

The critique of the Administration’s war effort by the political opposition has now reached a point where their only idea is to get out immediately, regardless of the situation on the ground. If they could be made to look like the fools that they are, there’s a chance that the President can regain some lost ground in approval for his handling of the war.

This is a political problem. As such, it requires a political solution. Past war presidents FDR and Lincoln were never above playing politics when the aim was to help the war effort. In fact, one could say that the President’s political position is much more analogous of Lincoln’s dilemma in 1863 than any period in FDR’s presidency. Support for the war in the spring of 1863 was at a low point following the bloody defeat of federal forces at Chancellorsville. The clamor from Copperhead Democrats to end the conflict and “negotiate” with the South was at its height. Instead of trying to appease the Copperheads, he had their leader Clement Vallandingame arrested and appealed to his most radical Republicans in Congress for support. The crisis passed with Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg later that summer.

Lincoln showed that he was willing to do anything to prosecute the war successfully. He ruthlessly stamped out opposition and appealed to bitter end Republicans out of political necessity. Surprisingly, these strong actions translated into political victory in statehouse elections in Ohio and Indiana later in the fall.

Some kind of bold stroke is similarly necessary now. And the President can start by firing his Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

As readers of this site know, I’ve been agitating for getting rid of Rumsfeld for almost as long as this blog has been in existence. If what we heard was true, that Rumsfeld offered to resign following the Abu Ghraib revelations and the President refused to accept it, then this constitutes the biggest blunder of the War to date. Sacking Rumsfeld for Abu Ghraib, not to mention the breakdown in discipline that led to torture at other detention sites that seems to indicate an endemic problem and not a series of isolated instances, would have gone some ways in defusing the torture issue that despite the President’s nonchalant disregard, seethes below the surface of the political debate.

Greg Djerejian sums up the case against Rumsfeld nicely:

Mr. President, this hubris-ridden, incompetent Secretary is increasingly becoming a major liability to you. Think beyond Andoveran codes of loyalty and such. This isn’t the Andover cheerleading squad or Skull & Bones. It’s really, really important—the ramifications of failure in Iraq are immense—and so the effort must be seen through with steely resolve. If a key member of your team doesn’t understand that an Iraq characterized by civil war or dueling militias is a strategic and moral failure, he must be taken off your team. National interest must trump any residual loyalty. Again, how can we be talking about troop pull-outs when, in the capital city itself, the mayor is sacked in some putsch, one cannot drive safely from the airport to downtown, and dozens of Shi’a police recruits are massacred by Sunni insurgents? Again, this is in the capital itself. Not to mention there is a roiling insurgency throughout the strategically critical Sunni heartland (as well as recent, and very alarming, moves towards Shi’a autonomy in the south of which more later)? Was this meant as some tactical signal to the Sunnis that they need to start playing ball or we will leave them to the bloodthirsty revenge-minded Shi’a? Absurd. Again, an Iraq characterized by large scale sectarian killings will be a strategic defeat for America, as well as a massive moral failure. Thinking conservatives cannot allow this to happen. We supported Bush because we thought he was likelier to provide serious war leadership with the rock-gut conviction to see it through even past ‘08 (hopefully handing off to his successor a project moving in positive direction). If his Defense Secretary is not on this page anymore, his Defense Secretary must go.

Is there a chance that the entire dynamic of the political debate will change as a result of this one move? Hardly. However, a Clintonian stroke of putting someone from the opposition party – someone in the defense establishment whose bona fides are so strong that at the very least, some of the acidity of the debate would dissipate, could split the political opposition into the cut and run camp and the war winning camp. The critique of the war would remain the same, but the dynamic would change as the debate would shift to war winning strategies rather than pure political naysaying.

And if that doesn’t happen? Then at least the President would have gotten rid of someone who should have been canned long ago.

There are other things the President can do to alter the political situation in the country so that the tough, slogging work in Iraq will have the political backing of the American people. But these two things will give the President a head start and can be done immediately.

NEXT: The Military Crisis