The View From Here . . .
By Bob Morgan, Jr.

President Bush's televised speech in which he announced a plan for a "surge" in Iraq of approximately 21,500 troops, principally in the Baghdad area, has again put the long and difficult war at the center of national debate.

There obviously are a number of leaps of faith associated with the plan. First and foremost, it involves working closely with Nouri al-Maliki, the Shiite leader recently elected as prime minister of Iraq. Mr. Maliki's coalition in Parliament includes supporters of Shiite extremist Moqtada al-Sadr, who commands a potent militia that has been a major player in the wave of sectarian violence that plagued the Baghdad area in 2006. Perhaps understandably, given his role as prime minister, Mr. Maliki is demanding a major Iraq role in leading the new operations.

As Fareed Zakaria points out in Newsweek this week, the greater fear, however, is that Mr. Maliki's Shiite backers will attempt to skew the operation by aiming it solely against Sunnis and ignoring the al-Sadr militias, thus embittering the Sunnis when the operation is over and likely driving them into the hands of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Obviously, Mr. Bush will have to use as much persuasion as possible to prevent this type of outcome.

Second, there is the possibility that the operation simply will not work, because the 17,000 additional troop to be deployed in the Baghdad area are not enough, because the overall strategy relies too heavily on Iraqi forces or because militants are merely likely to hide out during the operation, only to return later. Certainly, there has been no shortage of overconfidence about Iraq by President Bush and his Administration. Remember "Mission Accomplished"?

Nevertheless, the general that President Bush has placed in charge of the new operation, David Patraeus, is very highly respected and is an expert on terrorism. As The New York Times, not known for overemphasizing news favorable to the Bush Administration, reported last week in a piece about Iraq, "many officers interviewed for this article said they still believed the tide of the war here can be reversed, with the additional troops, the focus on regaining control of Baghdad and the more consistent military strategy they said they expected from General Petraeus". The changing of the rules of engagement that had constricted American operations in Iraq also seems welcome. Our soldiers have to be able to go after the terrorists wherever they find them.

If the President's plan is a risky one, albeit one with a reasonable chance of success, it certainly is more coherent than anything proposed by Democrats in Congress. Based on their rhetoric, Democratic leaders seem to believe that the Iraq war is hopeless. Nevertheless, they are unwilling to be seen as responsible for a withdrawal, which they could precipitate by cutting off funds for operations. Indeed, despite loud opposition to the President's plan for increased troops in Baghdad, the Democrats also are unlikely to try to cut off funds even for the surge, preferring instead nonbinding resolutions of opposition. In sum, the Democrats strategy seems to be to let the troops stay in harm's way without prospect of success (at least in their view) until Mr. Bush makes the politically harmful decision for withdrawal.

The war in Iraq has been a long and grim one, and great honor goes the brave men and women who have served in that country, including the 3000 who have made the supreme sacrifice. On balance, there seem to be few good alternatives to giving the President one last chance to salvage something out of a difficult situation.