Not only will George W. Bush lose the war in Iraq, but it may even have been lost before the first shots were fired.

I have been listening a lot to the almost daily pronouncements during White House and Pentagon briefings to the effect that the results of this war are inevitable. That victory is certain. That coalition forces will remove Hussein from power.

That last may be true. But I am increasingly thinking that it may be the only part that will be true. I am reminded of my Clausewitz: "War is politics by other means." Which means that as flashy as this military campaign may be, it is ultimately the political goals of this administration in going to war that will determine if "victory is certain".

As the war continues, and comments like Gen. Wallace that 'the opponent we're fighting is not whom we wargamed against', it sounds more and more like there has been a major miscalculation by the Bush administration. When Secretary of Defense Rumsfield says in a Pentagon briefing that "the war plan is Tom Franks war plan', it sounds an awful lot like a scapegoat is being set up if one is necessary. While the US will probably emerge from the desert sands with a military victory, it has reached a point where it will be very difficult to salvage this conflict politically.

This actually shouldn't be particularly surprising: the Bush administration has muddled its message of why this war is being fought. Desert Storm I was a resounding success, with a very, very clear goal: remove the occupying power from Kuwait. Afghanistan has been successful, because it had a clear goal: strike at the home of Al Qaeda. The present conflict with Iraq in 2003 is what? A mission to free the Iraqi people? An opportunity to settle the Palestinian question and bring peace to the Middle East? The elimination of weapons of mass destruction from a rogue regime? The objective is neither consistently nor clearly defined.

The closest to a define purpose the Bush adminstration has made, is the removal of weapons of mass destruction from under Saddam Hussein's control. Yet this is getting soft-pedaled as American forces enter Iraq and have yet had to find any. To paraphrase a familiar quote, if this was the reason for the compelling threat that drove us to war, then "Mr. President, show me the WMD!"

Even if there was a definitive purpose to pursuing conflict with Iraq, the political capital expended to achieve it is hardly worthwhile in a cost-benefit analysis. The driving principle underlying Bush the younger's foreign policy is a necessity to make America and the world safe from terrorist attacks. Yet Mr. Bush has raised the nation's threat level to "Orange - High" and said that this 'war creates danger', because of the potential that Iraqis and their sympathizers will use it as justification to launch attacks. So inspite of his claimed goal to reduce America's risk, by his own admission, Mr. Bush has knowingly made American's lives more dangerous by having started this war.

Recent news reports indicate that "thousands" of Arabs are flocking to Iraq to volunteer for suicide attacks against invading American forces. (And yes, America _IS_ invading; liberators are neither instigators nor aggressors, and America is both right now.) Allies in the Arab world who represent moderating forces in a region known for fundamentalist Islamic practices, are feeling pressure from internal groups opposed to the US' actions. Slovenia, a nation not exactly regarded as a world power, had rioting in the streets when they were mistakenly included in the budget war supplemental submitted to Congress as part of a foreign aid package for coalition members; the Slovenian government, again, not really in a position to comfortably do so, rejected millions of dollars from the Bush adminstration because it wanted no part of being associated with the coalition invading Iraq. There is no UN resolution to support this attack, because France (a historical ally back to the American Revolution) and Russia (with whom the US has been friendly since the fall of communism) both threatened vetos. American war plans have been greatly hindered by opposition from Turkey and Germany to allow their nations to serve as bases for attacking forces; both of those countries are key members of NATO, an alliance that invoked its Article 5 commitment to support and defend the United States after Sept. 11th. By foregoing their support, the Bush administration has all but made a mockery of the UN and NATO, alienating other principle member nations of those groups, in direct defiance of almost 60 years of American policy bolstering the UN and NATO as the key bulwarks for global peace and security.

While the war is going slow, certainly compared to Desert Storm I, and despite the indictment of military planning posed by General Wallace's comments last Thursday, it's unfair to heap criticism upon the military as many tv analysts have done. Considering the circumstances, and given the vast history of military conflict, the US is doing remarkably well. There's still fighting going on in Afghanistan, and America took casualties there within the last week. World War I was 4 years, World War II was 6 years, Korea took 3, Vietnam depending on how you count it spanned at least a decade -- jimminy, the Europeans fought a 100 Years War once, way back when! To have the expectations that this conflict would be only 100 hours like in '91 was foolhardy. Particularly since America has half the troops now to take control of a land area many times more larger. The US has moved more manpower and weaponry a greater distance in a shorter time in this conflict than just about any other military campaign in history, and shouldn't be criticized because the Iraqis decided to fight back.

In order for Operation Iraqi Freedom to have been a cakewalk like in '91, a great number of suppositions had to happen, and where there is criticism to be given, it is for assuming that all of these special conditions would've happened. Saddam wasn't going to roll over when his power and even his very life were at stake; and he had 12 years to learn from the mistakes of his last humilation at America's hands to try and figure out a different strategy to defend himself. Despite the role of liberators that Americans would like to consider themselves as, the Iraqi people are still having their homeland attacked. And even if Saddam Hussein is a repressive tyrant, issues of nationalism and national pride are certain to cause them to offer some kind of defense; how many Americans who voted for Al Gore in 2000 and still vehemently oppose George W. Bush in the opinion polls wouldn't still take up arms if somebody directly attacked America and landed troops in California or New York?

While the Bush administration would no doubt consider any international fallout because of Iraq irrelevant if it can achieve a political victory in the 2004 presidential election, it's unclear that even domestically, whether this war will be successful. Somewhat stealing my thunder from notes I was making last Friday, in Sunday's Washington Post, Jim VandeHei had an article critiquing the setbacks the Bush agenda has suffered in a Republican-controlled Congress. Not only is this significant in that Bush is not seeing his agenda passed, it means that he is not even effectively leading his own party, raising doubt over how he can said to be doing so for the entire country. Under the cloak of war, the eroding presidential leadership has been dealt setbacks in plans to drill for oil in ANWR in Alaska; has witnessed the defeated judicial nomination of Miguel Estrada; and had an ambitious tax cut plan halved in Senate voting. All this in a Congress run by his own party.

Make no mistake: George W. Bush is even more vulnerable in the 2004 presidential election than his father was after a war with Iraq. However, to do that, the Democrats have to field a viable candidate, who will aggressively question the Republican administration's leadership and actions, and stake himself to supporting alternative policy proposals. The lack of criticism for the Bush administration's actions thus far is remarkable, considering some of what it's done.

-Not only has it erred in estimating the Iraqi resistance in the present conflict, it has done so in rather frightening terminology and failed to recognize several significant historical parallels. The number of times they talked about the pre-war PsyOps campaign, and how the Hussein regime would topple with just a slight provocation, recalled to mind commentary that Stalinist Russia was a rottening house that would collapse if one just kicked in the door -- a remark that really came back to bite Hitler, who said it, in the behind.

-In expecting the native Iraqis to rise up against Hussein, and particularly in some recent reports that suggest coalition forces will wait outside major cities til popular revolts start to lessen the chances of house-to-house fighting, the Bush administration fails to consider the perspective of the local Iraqis, who consider themselves (justifiably, IMO) to have been betrayed by Bush the elder when the revolted in '91, and whom have the additional example from history of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1944, when the Poles rose up against the Nazis, expecting help from the Red Army on the outskirts of the city. The Soviets instead watched them all get slaughtered, so when they occupied the city, not only were the Nazis crushed, but so were any insurgents who would've resisted Soviet-imposed communist rule.

-Bush, and his lackey in the Justice Department, John Ashcroft, have made a mockery of the Bill of Rights, and are on the borderline of doing so with the Geneva Convention, because of their classifications of enemy combatants and the detention camp at Guantanomo Bay. Essam Hamdi, an American citizen, has been denied the right to an attorney, the right to a trial by jury, and even the writ of habeaus corpus.

And in the most remarkable of all of this, is that his immediate predecessor, Bill Clinton, was earning comparisons and accusations of being a real life "Wag the Dog" president, for much less in Kosovo. Think a minute about how controversial Bush's election was, and that in order to take office, Bush had to be okayed by the Supreme Court. The first 8 months of his tenure were extremely controversal and impotent, in particularly strong contrast to the relatively unquestioned support and strong solidarity Bush has enjoyed since September 11th. If someone wanted to be particularly Machiavellian in their thinking, considering that the war on terrorism generates his principle support, and the suggestions that invading Iraq will inflame Arabs into making further terrorist attacks, one could say that Bush is actually intentionally taking the US into war to perpetuate a climate of fear that will further his re-election plans in 2004. (For the record, I don't think he's put this kind of thought into it, but it is certainly a possible interpretation of what's going on.)

Anyway, I've dragged this particular message on long enough, and am already at least 2 days behind when I wanted to send it out. That's been somewhat frustrating, as I'm already starting to see news coverage both cover and then pass some of the points I want to make (and I still have some thoughts running through my head!). But I will have to save those for the next installment, and meanwhile be content to confess that my friends who have been encouraging my plans for later this year have probably been directing me on the right course.

Til next installment,
Matt :)