George Bush will today detail his new strategy on Iraq. Tony Kinsellasurveys a grim political and military landscape
President George W Bush, he who holds the reins of world power, announces a "surge" of 20,000 troops as the core element of his new plan to stabilise Iraq. It hardly qualifies as a surge, as the five brigades involved will arrive in dribs and drabs. Since there are neither sufficient forces to impose order nor any credible political proposals, the plan is doomed to fail.
Prof Daniel Kahneman of Princeton, the 2002 Nobel prizewinner for work on irrationality in decision-making, describes the Bush administration as "delusional". Republican senator Chuck Hagel agrees, describing a troop surge as "Alice in Wonderland . . . folly".
US foreign relations committee chairman Joe Biden's analysis is more acerbic. He accuses Bush of wanting to ensure that the next president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the green zone, taking people off the roof".
Bush, true to his valiant record with the Alabama Air National Guard, may succeed in not being on duty when the order to retreat is given. It risks, however, being an achievement that will cost the US, Iraq, and the rest of us dearly.
Lieut Gen David Petraeus, the incoming commander in Iraq, is the US's leading counter-insurgency expert. In his November 2006 edition of the US field manual on counter-insurgency, Petraeus confirmed the accepted ratio of 20 soldiers per 1,000 residents for such operations. Under this ratio, stabilising Baghdad would require an additional 100,000 troops. Petraeus will have to make do with a 10th of that figure.
The bloody Sunni-Shia battle for control of Iraq is one of five armed conflicts raging in that unfortunate country. Prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shia-dominated government has, yet again, promised Iraqi reinforcements. Most Iraqi military and police units are Shia. As active participants in Iraq's sectarian slaughter, they are part of the problem, not the solution.
Al-Maliki has also promised Iraqi Kurdish units, but they are engaged in another of Iraq's wars - the struggle for Kurdish supremacy in Kirkuk, Mosul and their adjacent oil fields - and are unlikely to be deployed to Baghdad.
Two additional US brigades will be deployed to Anbar province to join the third of Iraq's conflicts - the Sunni resistance to US forces. These 10,000 marines will at least be spared the angst of checking their backs to see who their Iraqi allies are shooting at. The US has no allies in Anbar.
The surged forces will not seek to address Iraq's fourth conflict - clashes between Shia factions - or its fifth - organised crime. Kidnapping, extortion and racketeering run through all of Iraq's conflicts. In the words of the Baker report: "If there were foreign forces in New Jersey, Tony Soprano would be an insurgent leader."
US actions in Iraq have lit conflagrations which now burn far beyond Washington's ability to control, much less extinguish, them. The White House has brought forth an Iraq that Iraqis are willing to fight over, but has so far failed to offer one that Iraqis might be willing to fight for.
The new US forces, spread out in smaller patrols and outposts, may reduce the 2,000 Iraqi deaths a month that Baghdad admits to - but at the cost of higher US casualties.
"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" the young Vietnam veteran, John Kerry, poignantly challenged the US Senate in 1971. More than a quarter of a century later the question is: "How do you ask another 3,000 US troops, and 50,000 Iraqis, to die for the president's mistakes over the next two years?"
It is the question presidential candidates have to answer.
The Republican frontrunner, Senator John McCain, has already nailed his colours to a Mesopotamian mast by calling for the force surge. If it works, McCain's stature as a likely president would be greatly enhanced. If it fails, his candidacy will be dead.
The other Republican frontrunner, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, served as a member of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, endorsing the negotiations and phased withdrawal Bush has rejected. Republican hopeful, ex-governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, has so far managed to dodge the issue.
If Republican candidates oscillate between reinforcing and withdrawing, while seeking to distance themselves from their disastrous White House, the Democrats' situation is only marginally more enviable.
The party's frontrunner, Senator Hillary Clinton, has yet to convincingly confront the demons of her past support for the invasion of Iraq. Her criticisms to date have focused on the administration's incompetence. As the campaign advances, she will have to address the thorny issue of just what she, as president, would do.
Another Democratic challenger, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, enjoys the advantage of being a newcomer, and calls for a Baker-style phased withdrawal.
A third Democratic hopeful, Senator John Edwards, used his campaign launch in the devastated streets of New Orleans to admit: "My vote was a mistake. I should never have voted for the war." He is calling for the immediate withdrawal of 40,000 to 50,000 troops from Iraq, and argues that it "would be a mistake for America to escalate its role in Iraq".
Credible candidates will have to spell out their solutions to an electorate with an ever-decreasing level of tolerance for evasive answers. The polls' judgment on those Republicans or Democrats who are seen to be responsible for the Iraq fiasco - whether by instigating, authorising, or failing to oppose or criticise it - could be very severe indeed.
Prospective candidates as yet unknown outside their states or even counties, who are pledging to bring the boys home, could emerge as serious contenders. Who had heard of Vermont governor Howard Dean before 2004?
A precipitate US withdrawal will leave Iraq aflame, threatening much of the Middle East and posing some very tough questions to the rest of the world.
But Bush's legacy could be even worse.
The new head of the US central command, which includes Iraq, is to be Admiral William J Fallon. The appointment of a naval aviator and former carrier group commander to oversee the Iraqi quagmire, where neither naval nor air power play much of a role, is either odd or frightening - depending on your perspective.
Writing on the subject of leaders in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Kahneman and his Harvard colleague Jonathan Renshon assert: "People prefer to avoid a certain loss in favour of a potential loss, even if they risk losing significantly more."
If this gambler's logic dominates the Oval Office, is Fallon preparing for US air actions to sanitise a corridor for an Israeli assault on Iranian nuclear installations while Iraq is left to stew? A Kahneman-Renshon double-or-quits?
Bush, he who holds our reins, would thus become our headless coachman. Come 2009, Bush will be safely ensconced in Texas and able to sit out the arrival of the remains of his Iraq fiasco, as he avoided saluting those of Gerald Ford last week.
That is probably our only comforting thought.
Tony Kinsella is a writer and commentator on world affairs