Miracles Are Unlikely in Bush's Middle East Gospel

by Charles V. Peña

Charles V. Peña is director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute.

A week after the U.S. presidential election, Secretary of State Colin Powell - often considered the moderate and realist in the Bush administration's first term - defended President George W. Bush's foreign policy record and said he "is not going to ... trim his sails or pull back. It's going to be a continuation of his principles, his policies, his beliefs." At the beginning of December, in Canada, Bush declared that the election was an endorsement of his foreign policy, especially the doctrine of preemption against gathering threats. He also reiterated his vision of spreading democracy in the Middle East. So what should we expect there during the next four years?

In Iraq, more than 18 months have passed since Bush declared "mission accomplished," but the conflict is still unfinished business. Re-taking Fallujah in November was more about real estate than realizing military or political-strategic objectives. Public enemy number one in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was not captured or killed. And it would seem that the vast majority of the 5,000-6,000 insurgents alleged to be in Fallujah simply ran away to fight another day. Indeed, even as victory was being declared, insurgents struck in Mosul and Samarra. More recently, there were back-to-back suicide bombings inside Baghdad's Green Zone.

Iraq has come to resemble the arcade game Whack-A-Mole, where every time you hit a mole as it pops out of a hole another one pops up out of a different hole.

Despite the inability of the American military to put down the insurgency, the Iraqi elections in January are still likely to take place. In fact, the U.S. has almost no choice but to hold elections - even if many Sunnis boycott them and if some segments of the population are unable to vote because of the violence. If elections are not held as promised, the majority Shiites will have every reason to more actively oppose the U.S. occupation and the interim Iraqi government, this time also using violence. Of course, elections are no guarantee of peace and stability either.

Excerpted from The Cato Institute.


A