For the last couple of weeks, all we’ve heard from the White House is about the “new way forward” in Iraq that the president will present to the nation before Christmas. Bush is going through the motions — meeting with all the right people, especially those who agree with him more than the Iraq Study Group — and the new policy, we’re told, is going to be just great.
Yesterday, of course, Tony Snow announced that the Bush gang will keep us in suspense a bit longer. “[Bush] decided, frankly, that it’s not ready yet,” Snow said. He did not offer a specific date for the speech, telling reporters, “[It] is not going to happen until the new year. We do not know when, so I can’t give you a date, I can’t give you a time, I can’t give you a place, I can’t give you a way in which it will happen.”
At a certain level, this didn’t strike me as terribly surprising or disconcerting. The White House says its new-and-improved policy isn’t ready yet. Fine. The Bush gang says they need more time. Fine. They say it’s more important to get it right than get it fast. Fine.
But upon further reflection, it’s not fine. The president has had nearly four years — the more he dithers and dances through his Kabuki-like “listening tour,” the worse Iraq gets.
We are more than eager for this White House to finally get something right on Iraq. But we find it chilling to imagine that Mr. Bush and his advisers have only now begun a full policy review, months after Iraq plunged into civil war and years after experts began warning that the administration’s strategy was not working.
We would like to believe that the reason for delay is that some of Mr. Bush’s advisers have come up with a sensible change in course and they are now trying to persuade the president to take it. Or that behind the scenes Mr. Bush is already strong-arming Iraq’s leaders to rein in the sectarian militias and begin long-delayed national reconciliation talks.
We fear that a more likely explanation is that the president’s ever-divided policy advisers are still wrangling over the most basic decisions, while his political handlers are waiting for public enthusiasm for the Baker report to flag before Mr. Bush tries to explain why he won’t follow through on some of the report’s most important and reasonable suggestions — like imposing a timetable on Iraqi leaders to make political compromises or face a withdrawal of American support.
That, or the White House believes it’s unproductive to roll out a new product line in late-December.
In the meantime, the delays are causing disruptions here and in Iraq.
The absence of an immediate new American plan for Iraq is adding to anxiety among Iraq’s moderate neighbors, who identify with the country’s minority Sunni Arab population, and has opened the way for new proposals from many quarters, in Iraq as well as in Washington, about the next steps. […]
In an interview, Senator Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican who is often critical of the president’s war policy, called the delay “unpardonable” and added: “Every day that goes by, we are losing ground.” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said in a statement, “Waiting and delaying on Iraq serves no one’s interests.”
A senior administration official said Mr. Bush had decided over the last two days to prolong the deliberations based on a concern that a pre-Christmas announcement might quickly be overtaken by events. That happened to Mr. Bush in late 2005 after he used a series of speeches to unveil a “Plan for Victory” in Iraq.
Oh right, the 2005 “Plan for Victory.” Remind me; how’d that one work out?
The NYT editorial get this just right: “If the president is delaying because he is searching for a good option, he can stop. There are none.”