Promises, Promises

On the one-year anniversary of President Bush's announcement of a troop surge in Iraq, it's worth looking back to see what he promised the American people would happen.

Here's the text of his speech. Recall that, at the time, the debate in Washington finally appeared to be shifting away from how to achieve victory and toward how to cut our losses. Instead, Bush announced he was sending 30,000 more troops into the fray.

"[O]ver time," Bush said, "we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents. When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas. Most of Iraq's Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace -- and reducing the violence in Baghdad will help make reconciliation possible. . . .

"To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution."

And lest anyone think that Bush didn't take these Iraqi promises seriously, he vowed that "America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced."

A year later, security has undeniably improved greatly -- although some experts suggest that the relative calm is due in part to all the ethnic cleansing that has already taken place. But all that promised political reconciliation? There are no signs of it whatsoever.

A year later, rather than admit the surge has failed in its primary task, Bush is calling it a success. And rather than hold the Iraqi government accountable -- say, by threatening to withdraw or pull back U.S. troops -- administration officials have come up with yet another plan that might work, might not, but either way buys time.

Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung write in The Washington Post: "In the year since President Bush announced he was changing course in Iraq with a troop 'surge' and a new strategy, U.S. military and diplomatic officials have begun their own quiet policy shift. After countless unsuccessful efforts to push Iraqis toward various political, economic and security goals, they have decided to let the Iraqis figure some things out themselves. . . .

"In many cases -- particularly on the political front -- Iraqi solutions bear little resemblance to the ambitious goals for 2007 that Bush laid out in his speech to the nation last Jan. 10. . . .

"Although some progress has been made and legislation in some cases has begun to slowly work its way through the parliament, none of [the major political] benchmarks has been achieved. Nor has the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki taken over security responsibility for all 18 provinces, as Bush forecast it would. . . .

"For some observers, the approach indicates a new realism in Washington, a recognition that long years of grandiose plans drawn from U.S. templates have not worked in Iraq. But others charge that the phrase 'Iraqi solutions' implies a cynical U.S. willingness to turn a blind eye to sectarianism, political violence and a wealth of papered-over problems -- if that is the price of getting the United States out of Iraq."

As Ricks and DeYoung explain, both sets of observers could be right: "U.S. officials at various levels are pushing the idea for different reasons, said Sarah Sewall, director of Harvard University's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and a Clinton-era Pentagon official. While Petraeus has embraced the notion out of 'realism,' Sewall said, she thinks the Bush administration 'has recently arrived at this formula out of desperation -- due to the failure of its past efforts.'"