President Bush Sets Up Republican Retreat

THE KEY QUESTION, after the Republican defeat last November, is how President Bush plans the necessary Republican retreat. You almost always have to retreat after a defeat in battle, and the quality of that retreat is what sets up the opportunity for a new offensive.

Said the president, as reported by Joseph Curl:

For all of us in this room, there is no higher responsibility than to protect the people of this country from danger. ... To win the war on terror, we must take the fight to the enemy. Both parties and both branches should work in close consultation...

If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides.

But is this the situation? Robert Haddick suggests what that the United States is really doing in the upcoming “surge” is not securing Baghdad but siding with Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim against Prime Minister al-Maliki and Moqtada al-Sadr. And also trying to avoid a complete wipe-out of the Sunnis. Yet the Sunnis are finished:

The Sunni insurgency is near its end. Far too late, the Sunnis now realize that only the Americans can protect them from the Shi’ite ethnic cleansing campaign... But even the Americans can’t help the Sunni Arabs now.

Haddick thinks that we are trying to help the Sunnis as a favor to the Saudis. But what will be the result of stirring the pot?

Domestically, we can read that the president is setting up some issues on which he can deal with the Democrats—immigration reform and alternative energy, for instance.

But he is also throwing down markers. His proposal to allow workers that lack company benefits to pay for health insurance with pre-tax dollars is one. His call for school vouchers is another. It is significant that Democrats immediately said: no deal.

No doubt. But you win elections with issues, taking down immovable objects with irresistible forces. With his markers on health care and education, Bush is setting up the Republican army for the future.

On top of that is the minefield that Bush has laid down on taxes. With the Alternative Minimum Tax and the expiration of many tax rate cuts passed in the early 2000s, Democrats are going to find themselves in a very nasty place some time in 2009 and 2010.

All in all, not a bad plan for a measured retreat. Now let us start planning for the next offensive.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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