Bush misunderstands realities of Iraq

Neither elections nor policy reviews have yet prodded President Bush into adopting a reality-based approach to Iraq or the Mideast.
The president still talks of "victory" in Iraq as he rejects the proposals of the Iraq Study Group and delays presenting his new Iraq plan. Condoleezza Rice insists we have reached a Mideast "clarifying moment" that will impel Arab moderates to line up against the extremists.
Meantime, Arab extremists are making dangerous gains that will multiply in the New Year -- unless the White House deals with the Mideast we have, not the Mideast of dreams.
In the Mideast we have, moderates are losing ground to extremists. Contrary to the expressed aim of the White House, American policy has strengthened the Islamists' hand.
This perverse outcome can be traced back to the nature of the Bush Doctrine that the White House adopted in response to 9/11. The goal went beyond attacking the perpetrators and their allies. The president wanted to radically transform Arab culture.
He proposed installing democracy in Iraq by force, and assumed Iraq would inspire upheavals in neighboring countries like Syria and Iran. This lovely goal ignored the absence in the region of civic institutions and the strength of Islamists who organize in the mosque.
To the White House's surprise, Islamists did extremely well in virtually all of the Arab elections we promoted. Think Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories, and the Shiite and Sunni religious parties that now govern in Iraq. Indeed, anti-American Shiite firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr -- whose militia kills Sunni civilians -- has become a kingpin in the Iraqi parliament.
U.S. policy continues to undercut moderate Arab opponents of Hezbollah and Hamas -- and Sadr. The administration still misunderstands the realities of Iraqi politics so badly that its new Iraq plan may strengthen the extremists, rather than stabilize Iraq.
Transformation
Throughout the region, U.S. plans for transformation have stumbled over the bleak realities of local politics. In Lebanon, Bush praised Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and the "cedar revolution" that elected reformers to power. Yet the White House betrayed Siniora last summer during Israel's bombing war against Hezbollah, by refusing his pleas for a cease-fire, just when Hezbollah was reeling.
Siniora thought the moment was right to isolate Hezbollah within the Lebanese political spectrum. But U.S. officials wanted Israel to score a military knockout against Hezbollah (and thus its ally Iran). They wanted transformation.
Instead, Hezbollah survived nicely, and Siniora's government was undercut by the destruction wreaked by the bombing. Hezbollah is on the verge of achieving political control of Lebanon.
With the Palestinians, the White House failed to support the Fatah party of moderate Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas with more than words, and then was astonished by Hamas' victory. Flummoxed by the election results, the Bush team has left the Palestinian issue to fester, as Islamists build on Palestinian misery to sink ever deeper roots.
Which brings us back to Iraq.
Decisions about the number of U.S. troops and when to turn security over to Iraq will be rendered meaningless unless the White House can grasp Iraqi political realities. Without a unified, functional Iraqi government, Iraqi forces will splinter and join the civil war; the country will become a terrorist haven irrespective of American troops.
Yet the White House continues to talk about strengthening the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as if Iraq were really a democracy. The administration's idea is to help Maliki form a "new political bloc" of moderates, including Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, which would supposedly isolate Sadr and his militia. Then the moderates together could fight against Sunni insurgents.
But Iraq is not a democracy as we know it. Maliki is a weak leader who fears that such a bloc might unseat him. He won't turn against his backer Sadr, nor will he fight Sadr's 60,000-strong militia. Nor will other moderate Shiite leaders, like Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who recently visited Bush in the White House, fight Sadr militarily.
Iraqi Shiite politicians tell me that their religious parties will not war against each other at a time when they need to be fighting the Sunni insurgents who are bombing their people. Ordinary Shiites would rally to the defense of Sadr because they see him as their only protector.
So any U.S. hope of promoting a strong Maliki government, or of vanquishing Sadr's militia, is a mirage. Either the United States helps the Shiites fight Sunni insurgents, or we get out of the way. This is the reality, not some dream of shifts in parliamentary blocs that will create a triumph of good guys over evil.
Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.