Dan Rather
LAST WEEK, Iraq returned to the front pages. With Congress back from its summer recess, with the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Roberts under way in the Senate, with all the new polls showing President Bush's approval ratings falling in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - this is an intensely political season in Washington. And the temptation for commentators and news analysts - not to mention Republicans and Democrats - will be to view the new spasm of violence in Iraq through the lens of domestic politics.
Undoubtedly, there is a political component to the U.S. involvement in Iraq - as there will always be in a democracy, especially one in which midterm congressional elections are fast approaching. But the state of affairs in Iraq, and its ramifications for the future, is one that bears consideration outside of partisan fights. Because whether one believes that Iraq "will take its place among the world's democracies," as President Bush insisted again last week, or whether one thinks it more likely that Iraq will devolve into civil war and separatism, one must concede that developments in Iraq will have far-reaching consequences for the Middle East, the United States and the world. Consequences that we will be reaping far past the tenures of those who now sow the seeds of U.S. foreign policy, and their critics.
BIPARTISAN APPROACH FOR IRAQ
The long-held notion that politics stop at the water's edge might seem an almost radical one in the current Washington climate. But a bipartisan approach to Iraq policy, if not a firm consensus, may be needed now more than ever. And forging such an approach may be one of the biggest challenges for President Bush's second term.
A second-term concern for his presidential legacy, and a recognition that the Iraq War will be inextricably bound with that legacy, are forces that might compel President Bush to undertake this challenge.
President Bush has long insisted that an early withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq - or any timetable for their departure - would only aid insurgents in Iraq. On the other hand, at least some Democratic congressional candidates are likely to promise a war-weary public that, if elected, they will push hard for just such a withdrawal. If the president doesn't want to leave Iraq's future to the vagaries of the ballot box - if, in other words, he wants to craft an Iraq legacy that will outlive his party's hold on power in Washington - he might do well to get as many Democrats as possible to stand with him on the withdrawal issue.
The president and his advisers would probably say that they have been trying to do this all along. And the administration's critics would probably say that, without greater candour about the situation on the ground in Iraq, such a thing is impossible. Meantime, many in the American public might well say: We want our sons and daughters to come home, and we don't want Iraq to become the kind of failed state that is a home base for terrorism.
Iraqis need to know that the U.S. commitment in their nation is a firm one, and Americans need to know how far along we and Iraq really are in meeting the conditions that could allow for a U.S. withdrawal. These needs are not incompatible. Either one may in fact be unsustainable without the other being met. Fulfilling them requires nothing more or less than both sides in the Iraq debate facing facts. Right now, the thing that most stands in the way of this mutual reckoning is politics. And now might be a good time for everyone to remember that politics once stopped at the water's edge.
Dan Rather is a television broadcaster.
