Toughing it out in Iraq

The conflicting news out of Iraq is obscuring a larger reality: The United States is now in an urgent race against time. Unless we bring calm there soon--in, say, three to six months--we will be forced to make exceedingly painful choices.

President Bush and his team are doing a better job these days highlighting the admirable work by U.S. and coalition forces in starting reconstruction. Looting is down, electricity up. Shops are reopening, hospitals expanding. Kids have returned to schools, many refurbished by American troops. Large chunks of the country are safer.

Yet the horrific bombings this last week in Baghdad underscore that as fast as we move ahead, we are not moving fast enough. October was the bloodiest month since the war supposedly ended in May. Since then, about 120 Americans have been killed in combat, along with several thousand Iraqis. Only now are we beginning to grasp that for every American killed, another 10 are wounded or maimed.

This course is not sustainable for much longer. Our troops are stretched so thin that a respected report in Congress says we will be unable to keep up current levels of deployment beyond March. To anticipate that contingency, the Pentagon must make alternative plans soon. Meanwhile, patience is wearing thin among Iraqis. As much as most welcome the fall of Saddam Hussein and the many new signs of civic life, the majority Shiites are increasingly partial to arguments from Islamic radicals that the only way to achieve true security is to throw out American "occupiers" and install Iraqis. In today's environment, such a prospect is an invitation to civil war.

Back home, the clock is also ticking. Several recent trips to the Midwest revealed a growing number of Americans asking, "What in the world have we gotten ourselves into, and how do we get out?" The unity we enjoyed after September 11 has shattered. Recent polls show that as many as 47 percent of Americans want to pull out most U.S. troops within the next year. The administration is working feverishly to patch up security by increasing intelligence, training more Iraqi forces, tightening borders with Syria and Iran, and strengthening military perimeters. It would help, too, to recall the Iraqi Army to its barracks, weeding out the Saddam loyalists and putting others to work. Let's hope these do the trick. But we should recognize that these palliatives will most likely fall short. If they do, the number of options available to us may boil down to just three, all painful:

(1) Withdraw: While superficially attractive, this choice would be a ghastly mistake, leaving Iraq in chaos and sending an engraved invitation to terrorists worldwide to hit us again--and again. Even a partial pullback at this stage would be a devastating setback for American foreign policy. Fortunately, President Bush has the backbone to stand up to the sirens of retreat. If anything, he embraces the old notion, "I would rather be right than be president."

(2) Internationalize: Democratic presidential candidates are queuing up here, and this option has considerable merit. If the president had only been wise enough to delay the invasion a little longer--if we can't find the weapons, what was the rush?--we would already have international forces working alongside us, and Iraq would probably be more secure. But now that we have Americanized the war, it is doubtful that even wholesale concessions would draw in as much international help as we need. No doubt we should be internationalizing far more than Bush has permitted, but we can no longer expect others to bail us out.

(3) Go for victory: Like it or not, this appears our wisest course. Even those of us who disagreed with the president before the war should see that once in, we must win and win decisively. The price will be high, but Iraq has now become a test of wills with terrorists. To flinch is to lose. In practical terms, that means we must be prepared for real sacrifices: expanding our armed forces, sending in more troops, spending more money, and rolling back tax cuts. The $87 billion Congress has just approved is not too much; it will prove too little.

In the meantime, we must crack down much harder right away. Let's put more soldiers on the streets and in neighborhoods, and clean out the terrorist nests. Let's put guards around ammunition caches so terrorists can't steal bombs and rockets. And why are we so reluctant to clamp down on traffic in Baghdad? The more we pour it on now, the less we will need later. Above all, we must regain our unity of purpose as Americans: This war belongs to all of us. Only if we stick together will we have the will and patience to win a new peace.