All Over but the Pullback

Now that seems odd. If the public thinks success is still likely, why is support for the policy so weak? Because, apparently, the public no longer views success -- defined as building a stable democracy in Iraq -- as worth the effort.

The United States went to war to get rid of Saddam Hussein and remove weapons of mass destruction from Iraq. Well, Saddam is gone, and Iraq is WMD-free. So why are U.S. forces still fighting?

Bush says the U.S. presence in Iraq is essential to fighting terrorism. That was a strong argument for a while, but the public no longer buys it. In the Pew survey, respondents were just as likely to say that the American effort in Iraq is hurting the war on terrorism as they were to say that it's helping. Moreover, two-thirds said they believe that the ability of terrorists to launch a major attack on the United States has not diminished since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. As for Vice President Cheney's insistence that the war in Iraq is necessary to fight the terrorists -- well, let's just say his argument seems unlikely to change many minds.

Bush also says the Iraq effort will help democratize and stabilize the whole Middle East. The public is not buying that, either. Pew finds only a third of the public saying that democratizing the Middle East is a good idea that will probably succeed. The majority said they believe either that democratizing the region won't succeed (36 percent) or that it is a bad idea altogether (22 percent).

Finally, a sizable majority is worried about the decline in America's image overseas, and it blames the Iraq war for much of the decline. Two-thirds of the respondents told Pew that America is less respected now than in the past, and 43 percent of the public (not just of the two-thirds) calls this a "major problem." And what caused America's decline in the world's eyes? A heavy majority, including almost two-thirds of Republicans, points to Iraq.

What emerges here is not fleeting disenchantment, but a coherent and hard-nosed critique of Bush's strategy. The administration's fundamental problem is not that the public is discouraged by U.S. casualties, or that news from Iraq has been bad, or that the president needs to give better speeches. The problem is that many Americans see no stakes in Iraq sufficient to justify the military effort and diplomatic cost.

If Pew's findings are accurate, then presidential rhetoric and developments in Iraq have mostly ceased to matter. The public will not support a military operation that it has come to regard as social work on behalf of Iraqis, rather than security work on behalf of Americans.

"I think we've reached a point where news from Iraq itself is not likely to reverse the trajectory," says Scott Rasmussen, the president of Rasmussen Reports. By contrast, "troops coming home is a new dynamic. And that is what will change poll numbers." Indeed, a combination of returning U.S. forces and lower oil prices come November, Rasmussen says, would be "Democrats' nightmare."

And so, any day now, the president's political advisers will likely go to him and say something like this:

"Mr. President, if U.S. forces are not clearly on their way out of Iraq by about June 30, we will face a bloodbath in the midterm elections, and the Republicans will lose the House or the Senate or both. On the other hand, if U.S. forces are coming home, you will have cut the legs out from under the Democrats. They will have no choice but to support your drawdown or call for an even faster one. Either way, they would be in no position to blame you for any subsequent setbacks over there. Right now, you have nothing to say on Iraq that makes sense to the public. Once the troops start coming home, it will be the other side that has nothing to say."

Which will Bush choose? If political reality alone does not sway him, he will likely conclude that maintaining a massive Iraq deployment in the face of increasing public hostility is unsustainable and ultimately counterproductive, setting up conditions for a Vietnam-style collapse and a backlash against Bush's democracy agenda.

So by spring, if not earlier, look for Bush to announce that progress in Iraq allows U.S. forces to start coming home. He will say that the drawdown is the best way to help the Iraqis stand on their own. He will argue, much as he did with his tax cuts, that whatever pace he sets is precisely the right pace, and that withdrawing any faster or slower would be the height of irresponsibility. He may also say that withdrawing is "not a formula for getting out of [the region], but one that provided the only sound basis for America's staying in and continuing to play a responsible role."

Those were the words of Richard Nixon, who, somewhere, is wanly smiling.

Author's e-mail:

jrauch@nationaljournal.com

Jonathan Rauch is a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and a columnist for the National Journal, which has a version of this article in its current issue.