President Bush has presented a new strategy for the war in Iraq that may be able to defeat the insurgency and reverse Iraq’s drift towards large-scale civil war. His speech has, however, raised many questions as to both the risks it will create over the coming months and the real-world ability to actually implement his plans.
Much of the criticism of the new Bush approach has been unfair. The new strategy is considerably more sophisticated and comprehensive than the details the President could fit into his 20-minute address – which had been cut back from a longer 40-minute version. It combines political, military, and economic action in ways that do offer a significant hope of success.
The following analysis examines the strengths and weaknesses of the proposals in the President’s speech in detail, but also adds important further details and clarifications by Secretary of State Rice, Secretary of Defense Gates, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace. A reading of these additional details is far more reassuring than the bare bones of the President’s speech, but it is clear that the new strategy and plan still involve several critical risks, the most important of which are political and military.
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