Bad day for Bush at the National Review

We reported below the the NRO's John Podhoretz told Bush to kill the Dubai Ports deal because he was in political deep shit. Now William Buckley has told him the war in Iraq is lost.

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what that has precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that “The bombing has completely demolished” what was being attempted — to bring Sunnis into the defense and interior ministries.

Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.

So it's time to admit defeat and move on. But that's not Bush's style so Buckley's advice will be ignored.

Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.

He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.

Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.

It would appear that the Republicans in congress will be forced by public opinion to go against Bush on the Dubai ports deal. This will warm them up to tell him enough is enough when it becomes obvious to everyone outside the Bush inner circle that the war in Iraq was a failure and is lost.