Below The Beltway

Exhibit A comes from Cicero at Winds of Change:

The President’s Iraq plan assumes that there is a cogent, non-sectarian, uncorrupted Iraqi national government to partner with. I propose that this is an illusion, laid bare by Saddam’s mob-like execution at the hands of revenging Shi’a. There is no real national government in Iraq that represents all the factions. I don’t believe it is possible at this hour.

We’re pouring 20,000 more of our forces to go “door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents”. Translation: We’re going to unwittingly assist one side of this sectarian conflict suppress the other. We will be taking sides in a conflict that goes back more than a millennium.

It has become inordinately difficult to see how our token force of 20,000 additional troops embedded in Iraq’s sectarian war will turn the tide in the Global War on Terror.

A thought echoed by Andrew Sullivan:

The premise of the speech, and of the strategy, is that there is a national democratic government in Baghdad, defending itself against Jihadist attacks. The task, in the president’s mind, is therefore to send more troops to defend such a government. But the reality facing us each day is a starkly different one from the scenario assumed by the president. The government of which Bush speaks, to put it bluntly, does not exist. The reality illumined by the lynching of Saddam is that the Maliki government is a front for Shiite factions and dependent for its future on Shiite death squads. U.S. support for the government is not, therefore, a defense of democracy in a unified country, whatever our intentions. It is putting the lives of American soldiers in defense of the Shiite side in an increasingly brutal civil war.

Exhibit B from the Washington Post:

Most Americans oppose President Bush’s call to send additional U.S. military forces to Iraq and just over a third say the new plan makes victory there more likely, an initial public rebuke of the strategy he unveiled last night in a nationally televised address.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted following the President’s speech finds broad and strong opposition to his call to send about 21,500 more troops to Iraq: 61 percent oppose the force increase, with 52 percent “strongly” opposing the build-up. Thirty-six percent support the additional troops; only one-quarter of the public is strongly supportive.

Support for adding troops is somewhat higher among the 42 percent of Americans who tuned into Bush’s speech. Forty-seven percent of viewers think the increase is a good idea, but the President’s supporters were more likely than others to watch or listen to his remarks. (Seventy-two percent of the public said they saw or heard Bush’s speech when the war began in March 2003.)

The tepid response to the President’s new initiative is due in part to the public’s broad opposition to the war and its skepticism about Bush’s handling of the situation. For more than two years majorities have said the Iraq war wasn’t worth fighting, and by nearly a 2-1 margin Americans disapprove of Bush’s leadership on the issue. The reaction is also based on a dire assessment of the facts on the ground: In this poll, 57 percent, a new high, say the U.S. is losing the war in Iraq.

And Exhibit C from London:

LONDON, England (CNN) — Britain has said it does not intend to send any more forces to Iraq following U.S. President George W. Bush’s announcement that he is sending an extra 21,500 troops.

Bush acknowledged that mistakes had been made in Iraq but said he believed the military boost was needed to help “break the cycle of violence.”

But asked on Thursday morning about Britain’s plans, Beckett said: “It is not our intention at the present time to send more troops.

“It has always been the case that we will make our own judgements and our own decisions depending on that series and sequence of events,” she told reporters in London.

Bad strategy, no public support, and no allies. You do the math.

Further thoughts from yours truly at The Liberty Papers here, here, and here.