Many foresee broad changes in Iraq goals

WASHINGTON – The growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration’s Iraq strategy, coupled with the prospect of Democratic wins in next month’s midterm elections, will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war, according to lawmakers in both parties, foreign policy experts and others involved in policymaking.

Senior figures in both parties are coming to the conclusion that the Bush administration will be unable to achieve its goal of a stable, democratic Iraq within a politically feasible time frame. Agitation is growing in Congress for alternatives to the administration’s strategy of keeping Iraq in one piece and getting its security forces up and running while 140,000 U.S. troops try to keep a lid on rapidly spreading sectarian violence.

On the campaign trail, Democratic candidates are hammering Republican candidates for backing a failed Iraq policy, and GOP defense of the war is growing muted. A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released this week showed that voters are more confident in Democrats’ ability to handle the Iraq war than the Republicans’ – a reversal from the last election.

Few officials in either party are talking about an immediate pullout of U.S. combat troops. But interest appears to be growing in several broad ideas. One would be some kind of effort to divide the country along regional lines. Another, favored by many Democrats, is a gradual withdrawal of troops over a set period of time. A third would be a dramatic scaling-back of U.S. ambitions in Iraq, giving up on democracy and focusing only on stability.

Many senior Republicans with close ties to the administration also believe that an aggressive new diplomatic initiative to secure a Middle East peace settlement is essential to a successful strategy in Iraq, as well as a new effort to engage Iraq’s neighbors, such as Syria and Iran, in helping stabilize the country – perhaps through an international conference.

One point on which adherents of these sharply different approaches appear to agree is that “staying the course” is fast becoming a dead letter. “I don’t believe that we can continue based on an open-ended, unconditional presence,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, a centrist Maine Republican. “I don’t think there’s any question about that, that there will be a change” in the U.S. strategy in Iraq after next month’s election.

Richard Haass, a former Bush administration foreign policy official, told reporters Thursday that the situation is reaching a “tipping point” both in Iraq and in U.S. politics. “More of essentially the same is going to be a policy that very few people are going to be able to support,” said Haass, now the president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Many Senate Republicans are waiting for the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, and former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat. Both Baker and Hamilton have made it clear that they don’t see the current administration Iraq policy as working – though they don’t plan to issue recommendations until well after the midterm elections, probably in early January. Many foreign policy experts believe the commission could sway President Bush more than most such study groups because of Baker’s close ties to the Bush family.