Consumed by Iraq

The major obstacle in the way of Bush's misguided domestic policy is not the Democrats but his catastrophic misguided policy in Iraq. While Lyndon Johnson was able to accomplish a great deal domestically in the middle of the Vietnam war it was before everyone realized how misguided and unwinable that war was. Mr Bush does not have that luxury. Richard Stevenson discusses this in a New York Times piece today, Bush's New Problem: More Carnage in Iraq Could Eclipse His Ambitious Domestic Agenda, and if anything I suspect he is minimizing the problem.

Despite weathering criticism of his Iraq policy during the presidential campaign, Mr. Bush is heading into his next four years in the White House facing a public that appears increasingly worried about the course of events in Iraq and wondering where the exit is.

And as he prepares to take the oath of office a second time and to focus more of his energy on a far-reaching domestic agenda, he is at risk of finding his presidency so consumed by Iraq for at least the next year that he could have trouble pressing ahead with big initiatives like the overhauling of Social Security. At the same time, Mr. Bush faces fundamental questions about his strategy for bringing stability to Iraq. How can the United States - with the help of Iraqi security forces whose performance has been uneven at best - assure the safety of Iraqis who go to the polls on Jan. 30 when it cannot keep its own troops safe on their own base?

And are Mr. Bush and his defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, more vulnerable to criticism that they have failed to provide American forces with everything they need to take on a shadowy, fast-evolving enemy that, as the Tuesday attack showed, continues to display a notable degree of resilience?

As "the light at the end of the tunnel" becomes as allusive as it was in Vietnam the administration is forced to send mixed messages.

The situation has left the White House sending two somewhat contradictory messages. One, alluded to by Mr. Bush at his news conference on Monday and stated explicitly by other administration officials on Tuesday, is that no one should expect either the violence to abate after the first round of elections on Jan. 30 or the United States to begin bringing troops home next year in substantial numbers.

"There should be no illusion," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said on Tuesday, "that suddenly right after the election the Iraqis are going to be able to take over their own security. Certainly, we're going to be there through '05 in significant numbers."

The other message is that progress is being made in Iraq, that the insurgency will eventually be quelled and that there is no reason to change course.

"The idea of democracy taking hold in what was a place of tyranny and hatred and destruction is such a hopeful moment in the history of the world," Mr. Bush said Tuesday after visiting with wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. "I'm confident democracy will prevail in Iraq."

So, where is the promised improvement?

For a year, the administration has suggested that Iraq would move closer to stability as it reached one milestone after another: the capture of Saddam Hussein; the handover of sovereignty and the appointment of an interim government; the deployment of Iraqi security forces; the military campaign to expel the insurgents from strongholds like Falluja; and the first round of elections next month.

Yet most of those milestones have passed with little discernible improvement in the security situation. Now some analysts are concerned that the elections could make the political situation in Iraq even more unstable by producing an outcome in which the Sunni minority feels so marginalized by the Shiite majority that it fuels not just further violence against Americans and Iraqis working with them but also more intense sectarian strife or even civil war.

The fate of Bush's domestic policy may be decided in the first two months of his second term several thousand miles away.

The elections on Jan. 30 will be sandwiched between two critically important moments for Mr. Bush: his second inaugural on Jan. 20 and the first State of the Union address of his second term, probably in the first week of February.

As a result, the degree to which the elections come off smoothly or not, and whether they move Iraq toward stability or even greater chaos, could well put an early stamp on Mr. Bush's new term. And the elections and whatever violence surrounds them could compete with or overshadow his calls for action on changing Social Security, rewriting the tax code, revising the immigration laws and stiffening educational standards, among other domestic plans the White House intends to begin rolling out in January.

His lack of credibility in Iraq will adversely impact his credibility on domestic issues even among members of his own party. With the potential that Iraq will have a negative impact on the Republican's political fortunes they will be less than enthusiastic about taking on other potentially divisive issues.