One of the latest casualties of the war in Iraq is President Bush’s assertion that the desire for freedom is so powerful it will spawn democracy and repel tyranny, even in the Middle East.

Fading are Bush’s soaring claims of Iraq as a beacon of western-style democracy in a region long racked by nondemocratic governments and religious extremism.

The pre-eminent force behind the president’s highly controversial “surge” troop buildup policy in Iraq – and the reason why Democrats are not pushing harder for immediate withdrawal – is the dire consequence of failure in Iraq. Neither Bush nor most of his critics are willing to tolerate the chaos that many say would ensue should American troops pull out of Iraq tomorrow. For now, the price of leaving is perceived to be higher than the price of staying. This is what makes the policy choices confronting Bush and the new Democratic majority in Congress so narrow and so daunting.

Two Bush speeches exactly a year apart illustrate his fundamental shift from freedom’s aspirations to defensive realpolitik.

On Jan. 10, 2006, Bush gave an upbeat assessment of the U.S. goals in Iraq in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

“When victory comes and democracy takes hold in Iraq, it will serve as a model for freedom in the broader Middle East,” he told the VFW audience. “History has shown that free nations are peaceful nations. … And by helping Iraqis build a lasting democracy, we spread hope of liberty across a troubled region; we will gain new allies in the cause of freedom.”

In a nationally televised address last Wednesday, Bush’s tone was more defensive, focusing far more on what he called “the consequences of failure.”

Should the United States fail in Iraq, he predicted, “Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region; and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people.”

Then Bush declared: “For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.”

Presidential scholar Charles Jones says Bush is hemmed in by his own definition of victory: an independent Iraq that can govern and defend itself. Concurrently, Jones said, Bush is propelled by a fundamental belief that a president need not bow to public opinion if he decides on a course he thinks is correct. Meanwhile, Bush’s opponents are reticent to inherit the aftermath of a pullout and the blame game that would ensue.

Bush “is commander in chief; he can make these decisions (to increase troop levels); he is seeking to justify these decisions,” Jones said in an interview. “It is politically risky … for his opponents – whether they be Democrats or Republicans – to go ahead and say we will now go ahead and do what we can do, primarily using the purse, to deny your capacity to do that. That is very risky, both in terms of the practicality of denying the troops the support they need, but also for what it says more generally about the opponents taking over this policy.”

In his 2004 book about the Iraq invasion, “Plan of Attack,” Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward quoted former Secretary of State Colin Powell invoking the so-called Pottery Barn rule: “You break it, you own it.”

It was a controversial statement when it was revealed nearly three years ago, even amid more optimism about Iraq’s future. Pottery Barn even protested that it had no such policy. But in essence, that is the foreign policy of the United States in Iraq in 2007. Iraq is broken, and the United States owns the consequences of whatever gets put back together.