Harold Meyerson: Shades of Cambodia

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So: Suppose Bush knows that we have to pull out of Iraq or else he will drag down the Republicans in 2008 -- that, far from being the William McKinley of Karl Rove's dreams, inaugurating a new era of Republican rule, he could well be Herbert Hoover come again, dooming Republicans for the next historic epoch. What can he salvage? He can begin withdrawing by slapping Syria and Iran around and showing that we're still the only superpower on the block. Or he can justify -- well, he can attempt to justify -- our continued presence in Iraq as being a way to bring a more dangerous nation, Iran, down a notch.

Nixon, of course, got more mileage out of Cambodia than that. He made the Democrats more angrily antiwar than they had been, widening a rift in the nation that he exploited brilliantly to his advantage. It wasn't his re-election campaign's dirty tricks to derail frontrunner Ed Muskie that made George McGovern the Democratic nominee; it was his broadening of the war. Maybe, just maybe, Rove has convinced Bush that if he widens the war, he'll really drive the Democrats around the bend, and bring demonstrators out to the streets, and that, somehow, he will gain from this polarization as Nixon did from his.

I'm inclined to doubt that, because it's likelier than not that a clear majority of the American people would be appalled at this point at the widening of the war, that the polarization the administration would provoke would only turn more people against Bush and his war, and send not just dangerous lefties but milquetoast moderates screaming into the streets. But Bush, Cheney, and Rove have seen their dreams turn to nightmares, and these guys didn't exactly exhibit sound judgment when things were going well. Massive miscalculation, if anything, is their stock in trade.

But, for all we know, Bush is beyond calculation at this point. Nixon and Kissinger, at least, recognized the need to wind down the war. Bush certainly laid the groundwork in his speech for getting out if Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki fails to deliver -- and does anyone really believe Maliki will deliver? But suppose Bush is simply looking for a way to stay the course, to keep forces in Iraq until he leaves the White House. Given the political exigencies in this country, if Bush wants to stay in Iraq for time immemorial, he had to say what he said tonight, and hope it gains him more time. Just as expanding the war to Iran does, in a warped way, renew the mission of our forces there.

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http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12371