Once again, President Bush recasts rationale for war in Iraq

? President Bush coined a new catch phrase in trying yet again to build support for an increasingly unpopular war: “Return on success.” That’s short for limited troop withdrawals – without spelling it out.

It follows Bush’s oft-stated mantra that American troops would “stand down” as Iraqi forces “stand up.” Democrats were hard pressed to see much difference. But no matter the bumper sticker slogan, the underlying thinking is a continuing U.S. military presence in Iraq through the end of the Bush presidency.

“This is all about handing off this problem to the next president,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden complained. “There is no plan to win, no plan how to leave, no plan how to end this,” the Delaware Democrat and presidential contender told reporters Friday.

Still, Bush’s carefully choreographed dance in recent days – his unannounced trip to Iraq, standing aside to let Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker present evolving Iraq strategy to congressional inquisitors and a prime-time speech that was conciliatory in tone – may have helped Bush and his GOP allies buy time.

Shifting goals

Bush did not use the word “withdrawal” in his 18-minute speech to the nation Thursday night from the Oval Office, but a modest withdrawal was clearly what he was talking about in an effort to mollify those seeking a drawdown.

“We’re making enough success in Iraq that we can begin bringing some troops home,” Bush repeated Friday at a Marine base in Quantico, Va. “I told the American people last night that we’ve got what’s called ‘return on success.'”

It was just the latest Bush war rationale rhetoric shift.

It all started with confiscating Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. When “mission accomplished” turned out premature, and such weapons were not found, the goal became saving Iraqis from a brutal dictatorship. Then it became spreading democracy through the Middle East. Then fighting terrorists there – so as not to have to fight them at home.

Poll rating unchanged

In his latest address to the nation, Bush was “at least trying to co-opt the sense of middle ground – make it look like the congressional Democrats are the unbending ideologically rigid crowd, and that he’s the one trying to reach out,” said Wayne Fields, an expert on presidential rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis.

Still, said Fields: “He is clearly tired. That was one of the things that hit me last night. Part of his early appeal to the general public was his infectious cheerfulness. Now, he looks worn down by the burden of it all – which is appropriate, but it makes for a different dynamic.”

An AP-Ipsos poll this week put Bush’s approval rating at 33 percent, about where it’s been hovering most of the year. And a clear majority of Americans say they think going to war in Iraq in 2003 was the wrong decision.

Bush’s latest tactics are to embrace a recommendation by Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, to basically roll back much of the buildup Bush announced in January.

End of ‘surge’ in sight

Looking ahead, the president talked of “an enduring relationship” between the U.S. and Iraq and conceded that a U.S. military presence there would extend “beyond my presidency.”

At 4 1/2 years, U.S. combat in Iraq has lasted longer than any U.S. involvement in war except for the Revolutionary and Vietnam wars.

Military analysts suggested Bush’s announcement of a troop drawdown is less reflective of successes in Iraq than of the reality that, absent a new military draft, the U.S. is short of troops to send.

Sometime next spring is the “natural end of the ‘surge,'” said Michele Flournoy, a former Pentagon defense strategist and now president of the Center for a New American Security, a think tank that focuses on national security issues. “I don’t see any indication of a fundamental restructuring.”

P.J. Crowley, a former Defense Department and White House official during the Clinton administration and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said Bush is “playing Iraq policy rope-a-dope so that the decision to formally end the failed Iraq mission falls in the next president’s lap.”