"From Thomas E. Ricks, The Post's military correspondent, comes a disturbing answer. Ricks reported yesterday that our commanders in the field 'now portray the intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias.'"
***Ricks quotes Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno on what it would mean if Iraq's leaders fail to use this moment of reduced violence to arrive at new power-sharing arrangements. "If that doesn't happen," Odierno said, "we're going to have to review our strategy."
Odierno's candid remarks should unleash a clamor for the administration to explain where its policy is taking us -- and whether the continuing sacrifice in Iraq is achieving more than just temporary tactical victories. We can trust our military commanders on tactics. Experience teaches us to be skeptical of the administration on strategy.
Bush's approach to Iraq is the classic case of a politician arguing that a problem will be solved if only we keep throwing large sums of money at it.
***
In the way that he's managing the Iraq and budget debates, the president is trying to evade the essential questions. By focusing on the surge, Bush avoids responsibility for explaining where we might be in Iraq at the end of his term. And by picking symbolic budget fights, he never has to explain how his own policies -- his ludicrous initial assumptions about the costs of the war, his refusal to ask for the taxes to fund it -- have created the fiscal mess he now decries.
By the way, do remember that our own Mitch Daniels helped with those "ludicrous initial assumptions about the costs of the war."
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