A time for leadership as Bush feels the heat

IT HAS not been a good ten days for supporters of the liberation of Iraq. Indeed, one can imagine the likes of Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and their parliamentary ilk (sadly not confined to the predictable Liberal Democrat and SNP benches) sitting back and fatuously proclaiming their self-righteous "vindication" that the war in Iraq was an exercise of hubristic folly.

This was, they maintain, a bad war and it is not a great stretch from thinking that to believing that the resistance - to use a term that dignifies the "resisters" more than they deserve - is justified. They may be using the wrong tactics, but their hearts are in the right place surely?

No matter how unrepresentative of wider Shiite feeling they may be, Moqtada al-Sadr and his followers have succeeded in challenging the American vision for Iraq’s future. The Shiite uprising has given succour to those who believe that the war was, at best, a reckless gamble and at worst an act of unparalleled folly.

There is no point in denying that the US in general and the administration in particular is deeply worried and disconcerted by recent events in Iraq. The transfer of sovereignty, scheduled for 30 June, looks increasingly shaky. Whether that transfer will be either productive or met at all is a matter that few can speculate on confidently.

These are tough times, in which resolve and steadfast determination will be needed. This is the stuff that true leadership is made of. But Washington is a troubled place this week.

It is certainly true that the neo-conservative champions of the war never envisioned this outcome. It is not yet "morning in Iraq", and Baghdad is far from being a city on a shining hill. That does not in itself, of course, mean that the overall neo-conservative analysis of the challenges facing the US and the wider western world was incorrect.

Shaking things up, blowing things up, has ipso facto uncertain, unpredictable consequences. But it must be admitted that few of those who supported and believed in the war foresaw something like this happening.

President Bush’s approval ratings have plummeted this year. Hitherto, his handling of foreign policy and the war against al-Qaeda and its surrogates have been his long suit. That is now being questioned, however, and not just by the usual "knit your own yoghurt" brigade. Indeed, it would be surprising if mainstream moderates, gazing at the chaos in Iraq, did not begin to second-guess the wisdom of the decision to topple Saddam’s regime.

That is a luxury we enjoy that is denied to the Arab world. Nonetheless, a thousand minor victories in the new Iraq are less important and significant than a single major defeat. That is why the stakes are so high.

Referring to the dreadful events in Fallujah recently, William Kristol, the neo-conservative editor of the Weekly Standard, worried that "the temptations of accommodation and wishful thinking are still strong". Although his frame of reference was specific, his worry was general. The neo-cons, if one must use that frequently bastardised and misapplied term, are fewer in number than popular imagination on either side of the Atlantic might lead one to believe. But this has been their war. Henry Kissinger is right to say that they have won this particular intellectual battle, but they have not necessarily won the war - or rather, they have yet to persuade the administration that actions necessarily follow words, and the neo-cons’ victory remains incomplete.

It is by no means impossible to imagine a second Bush administration - or one led by Senator John Kerry - coming to an accommodation with the mullahs in Iran and continuing to worry more about the consequences of scaring Saudi Arabia than recognising the need to frighten the decrepit, corrupt House of Saud in the first place.

Mr Kerry is correct to insinuate that Saudi represents the great unlanced boil in American foreign policy. He has yet to demonstrate, however, that he has the courage and determination to clean that particular Augean stable. Nor, however, has Mr Bush demonstrated a desire to do so.

Yet amid all this dreadful news, one thing may - just may - be certain. The United States is not, hopefully, for turning. Neo-conservatives in fact often doubt and question the administration’s willingness to see the project of the transformation of the Middle East through to its logical conclusion, but the public pronouncements of the administration suggest that the Bushies, too, appreciate the importance and relevance of this mission. The question must be, however, whether the tawdry needs of re-election trump this historic endeavour.

Even if Mr Bush is re-elected, it is by no means certain that the neo-conservative vision will continue to be in vogue. Much of the world will give thanks for that, of course. In a thinly veiled attack on the central neo-conservative belief that the democratisation of the Middle East is and should be America’s long-term goal, Mr Kissinger argued in a less opaque than usual column in the Washington Post on Sunday that "no challenge is more important than to define a direction of foreign policy integrating our values and our interests".

Supporters of the war would contend that America’s interests are inseparable from its values, but there is little doubt that many senior members of the administration - including Donald Rumsfeld and, probably, Dick Cheney - would agree with Mr Kissinger’s distinction between the two.

It is entirely regrettable that this is an election year. This is a time when the long-term view urgently needs to prevail over short-term considerations of political expediency. The prospect that the challenges and the courage needed to clear these fences will test both candidates in the run-up to November is not necessarily to be welcomed. Both Mr Bush and Mr Kerry need to remember that Iraq is more important than the internal politics of the United States; at present, both seem determined to mine as much political advantage as possible out of the present chaos.

Yet amid this strife, "cutting and running" seems impossible. That at least is something to be welcomed, even if the president has yet to explain himself and his thinking fully and coherently. The lessons of Lebanon and Mogadishu have been learned.

Mr Kissinger was right to note that "Iraq is turning into the test case" for the future of US foreign policy. Success or failure will in large part determine who holds the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next year and, more importantly, will decide whether the US’s quasi-evangelical mission of pursuing and fostering reform across the Middle East continues.

As Condoleezza Rice testified before the 9/11 Commission last week, this is a generational struggle. "We’re not going to see success on our watch. We will see some small victories on our watch." That was a chilling but accurate analysis.

The president - and by extension Tony Blair - chose to follow a policy that, as Ms Rice put it, meant that "we could fight a narrow war against al-Qaeda and the Taleban or we could fight a broad war against a global menace. We could seek a narrow victory or we could work for a lasting peace and a better world. President Bush chose the bolder course." It is perhaps unsurprising that this should disconcert so may voters.

It remains to be seen whether that boldness will be rewarded at home and abroad. Washington is a worried city this week as the administration struggles to make sense of recent events in Iraq, ever mindful of the electoral consequences of misplaying its hand.

No American election is unimportant, but Iraq and its future are even more important than the choice the US makes between two men this November.