TEFRA and Iraq

I expect to make two or three observations about Iraq this week, as it is deservedly the leading item in the news. The Washington Post goes anonymizing in Sunday's edition, citing several administration sources who decline to be named in a front page story about lowered American expectations of what is possible in Iraq. TEFRA, for the whippersnappers in our audience today, is the acronym for the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, a package of what were then euphemistically called "revenue enhancements" aimed at mitigating the effect on the federal deficit of the previous year's large tax cut package. It was obviously a package of tax increases, that were not called tax increases mostly because President Reagan would not accept anything labelled "Tax Increase." This fact did not prevent Reagan administration officials and Republican allies in the Senate from writing most of the package themselves. This trip down memory lane was inspired by the discordant note in the Post story about Iraq, helpfully supplied by President Bush himself in his radio message Saturday: "The establishment of a democratic constitution is a critical step on the path to Iraqi self-reliance. Iraqis are taking control of their country, building a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself. And we're helping Iraqis succeed. We're hunting down the terrorists and training the security forces of a free Iraq so Iraqis can defend their own country. Our approach can be summed up this way: As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. And when that mission of defeating the terrorists in Iraq is complete, our troops will come home to a proud and grateful nation.... The terrorists cannot defeat us on the battlefield. The only way they can win is if we lose our nerve. That will not happen on my watch. Withdrawing our troops from Iraq prematurely would betray the Iraqi people, and would cause others to question America's commitment to spreading freedom and winning the war on terror. So we will honor the fallen by completing the mission for which they gave their lives, and by doing so we will ensure that freedom and peace prevail." This and the rest of the radio address is boilerplate, repeating language Bush has used many times in the past. It is also at considerable variance from the tone set by the Post's sources. For example: "What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning." and "We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic," said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning, who like some others interviewed would speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity. "That process is being repeated all over." and again "We've said we won't leave a day before it's necessary. But necessary is the key word -- necessary for them or for us? When we finally depart, it will probably be for us," a U.S. official said. What is going on here? The best case scenario is probably the TEFRA scenario: Bush, like Reagan determined to maintain control of the presentation of policy, is allowing subordinates to gradually alter the substance of policy. Other possibilities are less hopeful. Administration officials may be speaking anonymously out of desperation, using a traditional Washington tactic to get a message through to a President reluctant to heed it; they could also be getting encouraging signals from a White House that nevertheless has not decided to do what they recommend, the reasoning here being that Bush still believes in staying the course but knows he cannot afford to lose too many more people from his thin national security team. I don't know; I only hope. At this point the TEFRA scenario looks pretty good to me. I will confess a bias -- I never considered the creation of a stable, liberal democracy in Iraq, let alone one that would serve as a beacon for the rest of the Arab world, to be an attainable objective. Foreign policy, as Henry Kissinger said, should not be confused with social work, and the rehabilitation of a culture backward to begin with and deeply traumatized by decades of Baathist rule is social work on a massive scale, requiring far more time and resources than we can prudently commit to one mid-sized Arab country. The commitment having been made, however unwisely, the United States has an obligation to try to make it good. We have other obligations too, though, that we cannot afford to subordinate indefinitely to this one. In addition, without the pressure of knowing that American forces will not be there indefinitely Iraqi political factions are less likely to proceed in a timely manner to agree on a constitution and a political arrangement to govern the country. At some point we have to find out if the Iraqis can establish a stable government, or not. It's at least a little bit encouraging that some administration officials are aware that point is fast approaching.