Bush's game of chess in Iraq
Email|Print| Text size + By Andy Zelleke
December 22, 2007
THE NEWS out of Iraq has become much more upbeat - a welcome relief for war-weary Americans. Fewer US soldiers are dying, and the car bombings and gruesome sectarian killings are down as well. In response, politicians and pundits are backing away from earlier conclusions that the war is unwinnable. Victory, certainly not yet at hand, has at least begun to look attainable.
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President Bush, football fan that he is, probably sees himself as being on the verge of quarterbacking a come-from-behind, John Elway-style, fourth-quarter victory in Iraq - preparing to delight, as Elway did on so many memorable occasions for the Denver Broncos, in proving wrong the many of little faith who had concluded, prematurely, that the cause was lost.
The problem is that the analogy between the Iraq war and a football game that can be meaningfully "won" is misplaced. In a football game, the only thing that matters is the final score, and the only game that matters is the one being played. True, the athletes and coaches are human beings who go home to the full range of life's problems once they leave the stadium; but from a fan's perspective, it's all about the game and the final score. If your team has more points when the final whistle is blown, all the anxieties that may have preceded the moment of victory - falling behind, sustaining injuries, losing composure - are forgotten.
Instead of a football game, the more apt analogy for America's predicament in Iraq is to a chess match. More precisely, to the scenario in which a chess master takes on a dozen challengers - simultaneously - at an outdoor park, shuttling from table to table to make his moves, while each of the challengers has only a single match to worry about.
On the Iraq chess board, seen in isolation from all the others, the prospects now look less desperate than they did pre-surge, in that a "victory" - in the sense of a minimally acceptable, and sustainable, status quo - no longer seems beyond the pale. But there is still no reason to believe that even that minimalist "victory" can be achieved without a wildly disproportionate commitment of soldiers, money, and White House attention for far longer than anyone could deem to be strategically worthwhile in light of America's global and domestic interests. Meanwhile, as we obsess over one chess board to keep from losing that particular match, our challengers seated at the 11 other tables gleefully exploit our government's utter and continuing failure of perspective.
General David Petraeus's success in improving the situation on the ground in Iraq now presents a real strategic opportunity for the United States. But it is almost certainly not the opportunity that Bush perceives it to be, which is to "win" by remaining in Iraq in very large numbers until such time (which may never come) that a reasonably pro-US Iraqi government can function reasonably well without that presence.
Rather, what Petraeus has contributed is the competence to turn chaos into relative stability, which helps deprive Al Qaeda and the anti-American propagandists of the claim that the United States was chased out of Iraq. Bush has the opportunity to take measure of American interests around the world (and at home), and use this relative calm as an opportunity to reclaim strategic initiative and purposefully shift away from the present course in Iraq - not because our adversaries in Iraq are succeeding against us, but because we have more pressing business elsewhere.
Bush has not simply made a poor decision on an important foreign policy matter; if that were all, he would be in good company that would include modern-day icons John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. His greater leadership failure is in lacking the judgment to recognize the nature of the game he is playing, and the strategic recklessness of persisting in playing it to "win."
Andy Zelleke is a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and co-director of its Center for Public Leadership.
Email|Print| Text size + By Andy Zelleke
December 22, 2007
THE NEWS out of Iraq has become much more upbeat - a welcome relief for war-weary Americans. Fewer US soldiers are dying, and the car bombings and gruesome sectarian killings are down as well. In response, politicians and pundits are backing away from earlier conclusions that the war is unwinnable. Victory, certainly not yet at hand, has at least begun to look attainable.
more stories like this
'Curveball': A case of bad information and blinkered vision
Bush says Congress wasting time, money
Text of President Bush's news conference
For Democrats, a session of gains, disappointments
Congress sends Bush budget bill with Iraq money
President Bush, football fan that he is, probably sees himself as being on the verge of quarterbacking a come-from-behind, John Elway-style, fourth-quarter victory in Iraq - preparing to delight, as Elway did on so many memorable occasions for the Denver Broncos, in proving wrong the many of little faith who had concluded, prematurely, that the cause was lost.
The problem is that the analogy between the Iraq war and a football game that can be meaningfully "won" is misplaced. In a football game, the only thing that matters is the final score, and the only game that matters is the one being played. True, the athletes and coaches are human beings who go home to the full range of life's problems once they leave the stadium; but from a fan's perspective, it's all about the game and the final score. If your team has more points when the final whistle is blown, all the anxieties that may have preceded the moment of victory - falling behind, sustaining injuries, losing composure - are forgotten.
Instead of a football game, the more apt analogy for America's predicament in Iraq is to a chess match. More precisely, to the scenario in which a chess master takes on a dozen challengers - simultaneously - at an outdoor park, shuttling from table to table to make his moves, while each of the challengers has only a single match to worry about.
On the Iraq chess board, seen in isolation from all the others, the prospects now look less desperate than they did pre-surge, in that a "victory" - in the sense of a minimally acceptable, and sustainable, status quo - no longer seems beyond the pale. But there is still no reason to believe that even that minimalist "victory" can be achieved without a wildly disproportionate commitment of soldiers, money, and White House attention for far longer than anyone could deem to be strategically worthwhile in light of America's global and domestic interests. Meanwhile, as we obsess over one chess board to keep from losing that particular match, our challengers seated at the 11 other tables gleefully exploit our government's utter and continuing failure of perspective.
General David Petraeus's success in improving the situation on the ground in Iraq now presents a real strategic opportunity for the United States. But it is almost certainly not the opportunity that Bush perceives it to be, which is to "win" by remaining in Iraq in very large numbers until such time (which may never come) that a reasonably pro-US Iraqi government can function reasonably well without that presence.
Rather, what Petraeus has contributed is the competence to turn chaos into relative stability, which helps deprive Al Qaeda and the anti-American propagandists of the claim that the United States was chased out of Iraq. Bush has the opportunity to take measure of American interests around the world (and at home), and use this relative calm as an opportunity to reclaim strategic initiative and purposefully shift away from the present course in Iraq - not because our adversaries in Iraq are succeeding against us, but because we have more pressing business elsewhere.
Bush has not simply made a poor decision on an important foreign policy matter; if that were all, he would be in good company that would include modern-day icons John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. His greater leadership failure is in lacking the judgment to recognize the nature of the game he is playing, and the strategic recklessness of persisting in playing it to "win."
Andy Zelleke is a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and co-director of its Center for Public Leadership.
