Analysis: Bush Still Calls Shots on War

President Bush, right, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair speak with reporters during a joint news conference Thursday, Dec. 7, 2006, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington. Call him a lame duck, a weakened leader, a disappointed president whose party lost control of Congress. But call him the decider when it comes to a new approach in Iraq. After all the studies and recommendations and talk, President Bush will call the shots. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (Gerald Herbert - AP)

WASHINGTON -- Call President Bush a lame duck, a weakened leader, a disappointed president whose party lost control of Congress _ and the decider when it comes to a new approach in Iraq. After all the studies and recommendations and talk, the president will call the shots.

Members of Congress can complain and investigate, yet there is little they can do to change Iraq policy short of cutting off funds. Regardless of Bush's diminished state, the ball is in his court. While Congress can declare war, the president, after all, is the one who moves troops.

Bush is expected to outline what he calls his new strategy for Iraq in a speech before Christmas.

In developing his policy adjustments, Bush said he would weigh recommendations from the Iraq Study Group headed by Republican James A. Baker III and Democrat Lee Hamilton; the Pentagon; the State Department; and his National Security Council.

"Not only does the president have the decision-making capability here, but he's got another important thing, and that's the bully pulpit," said Stephen Wayne, a government professor at Georgetown University. "He knows where public opinion is, and it's against him, and he knows it's not going to change unless the situation changes."

Washington was galvanized last week by the change-the-course recommendations from the Baker-Hamilton commission. They included a call for withdrawing most U.S. combat forces from Iraq by March 2008, shifting the U.S. mission to one of training and advising, and soliciting Iran and Syria's help in stabilizing Iraq.

Bush has reacted coolly. But the report probably will figure prominently in the new course he lays out. And it has a built-in advantage because it comes with a bipartisan imprimatur.

Baker, secretary of state in administration of Bush's father, said the report was the only truly comprehensive bipartisan plan that has surfaced. "I hope we don't treat this like a fruit salad and say, `I like this, but I don't like that,'" Baker said at a Senate hearing.

Bush, however, may do just that.

The president seems bound to embrace some recommendations and credit the five Republicans and five Democrats behind them. Where possible, he probably will say that some changes urged by Baker and Hamilton _ such as leaning more aggressively on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki _ only reflect what already is under way.

Bush invited congressional leaders _ Democrats, who will control Congress beginning next month, and Republicans, newly in the minority _ to the White House on Friday to discuss Iraq.

Afterward, presidential spokesman Tony Snow said Bush made clear he would consider all views and strive for bipartisanship. But, Snow added, "He is commander in chief and that's something that the people in the room also realize."