Clock ticking on Iraq

OPINION:

Rather than head off to Texas next month, President Bush should sacrifice his summer vacation this year — the same way American troops in Iraq are sacrificing theirs — and commit himself to doing the two things that will make a difference in the outcome of the Iraq War.

First, he needs to go on the road and make his case to the American people why they should continue to support the war, and why their representatives should vote against withdrawal in the fall. Before he gets to be the decider-in-chief he needs to become the persuader-in-chief. And the time for him to do it is running out.

Mr. Bush needs to go over the heads of the liberal media and explain directly to the American people just what is at stake in Iraq. He needs to level with us about the consequences to the United States and Iraq if we withdraw before the Iraqis can manage their own security.

Right now about the only person making that case is the New York Times bureau chief in Baghdad, John Burns. As Mr. Burns said in a recent interview with Charlie Rose — which should be required viewing for every member of the administration and Congress — the consensus opinion in Iraq is that our withdrawal right now would be followed by widespread ethnic cleansing and genocide. No matter how we try to “spin it” the Arab world will see our withdrawal as defeat. It will embolden al Qaeda and those who would do us ill and will cause our allies in the region to hedge their bets and distance themselves from us.

The president also needs to point out that if we leave, the thousands of militants — be they al Qaeda, Sunni or Shi’ite — are unlikely to put down their arms and join the Baghdad Rotary Club or the Fallujah P.T.A.They’re more likely to take the fight to Iraq’s neighbors — Jordan, Saudi Arabia or Syria. War could well spill out beyond Iraq’s borders and threaten to destabilize the entire Persian Gulf region, and also endanger the free flow of oil.

Furthermore, Mr. Bush must level with us about the price tag for staying in Iraq — in lives, in treasure and in time. Now that Plan A has failed, what is his Plan B? Because despite all the anti-war rhetoric coming from the left, when you strip it away they don’t have a Plan B either. They’re making a lot of noise and banging around a lot of pots and pans to disguise the fact that they don’t have a recipe.

Most of all, however, Mr. Bush needs to have a heart-to-heart talk with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi government and tell them the jig is up. He has been assuring the Iraqis for far too long that “as you stand up we will stand down.” What he needs to tell them now — bluntly and in no uncertain terms — is that unless you guys stand up, we’re standing down. And the time for them to stand up is running out.

The deadline is September 15, because that’s when Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will report on the progress — or lack of progress — in Iraq. Unless there is some good news in their report, the mood in Congress will get ugly. Returning legislators will have just spent their summer vacations back in their districts talking to constituents. And they will have heard a bellyful of complaints. Absent some compelling reasons to stay in Iraq, Congress will likely vote to cut off funds in the months ahead. Then the real fighting breaks out, both in Washington and in Iraq.

Of course the great tragedy in all this is that, after four years of extraordinary incompetence, we finally have the right team in Iraq to pull this off. There is a chance that recent military successes in Al Anbar and Diyala provinces are the beginning of a trend and not an anomaly.

There is even a glimmer of hope on the Baghdad political front. A former American cabinet official recently returned from Iraq optimistic that the revered Shi’ite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, will soon engage the top Sunni sheikhs in a genuine effort at political reconciliation.

Maybe this is all a day late and a dollar short. But maybe the Iraq war can end well. Because if it doesn’t, the alternative is not that we get to come home, pull up the drawbridge and hide behind the moat. It is a long-term struggle with seriously bad consequences for us, for Iraq, for the Middle East and the world.

Only one thing is for certain: if Mr. Bush doesn’t turn popular opinion around this summer, and wring some progress out of Mr. Maliki by September 15, the Iraq war will end badly.It’s worth giving up a summer vacation. So, Mr. Bush, leave the cowboy boots in the closet, pick up the phone to Baghdad and then hit the road and talk to the American people. Time is running out.

Kathleen Troia “KT” McFarland served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.