Bush sticks to his guns; he's unswayed by polls

You've got to say this for President Bush: He's willing to risk further decline in his popularity to pursue the course he thinks is right in Iraq. He may even be willing to do so in the face of opposition by some of his military commanders.
And he seems unconcerned over how this will ultimately affect his place in history, even as some historians are already rendering sharply critical judgments.
The president made clear again Wednesday that he won't be deterred by growing public disenchantment with the war, the anti-Republican tide in the elections, or by setbacks in Iraq itself.
"We're not succeeding nearly as fast as I wanted," Bush conceded at his end-of-the-year news conference. But he reiterated "we're going to succeed" in the struggle with terrorism that he deemed "the calling of our generation."
To do so, he said, "is going to require a sustained commitment from the American people and our military," a commitment that has come under question by both.
Dropping numbers
Polls show that public confidence continues to drop, and some top military men inside and outside government have expressed doubt that the war can be won militarily.
But when Bush was asked if he was willing to persist in Iraq even if meant going against the will of the American people, he replied, "I am willing to follow a path that leads to victory."
And he sidestepped a question about whether he will, if necessary, overrule military commanders who are skeptical about sending more troops, calling them "bright, capable, smart people whose opinion matters to me a lot."
He refused to say whether, as has been widely reported, his current effort to devise "a new way forward that can succeed in Iraq" will lead to an increase in U.S. forces. But Bush made clear that beginning to withdraw U.S. troops, as the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended, is about the farthest thing from his mind.
"I want the enemy to understand that this is a tough task but they can't run us out of the Middle East," he said. "They think it's just a matter of time before America grows weary and leaves, abandons the people of Iraq, for example, and that's not going to happen."
In a sense, the end of the election campaign and the replacement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with Robert Gates have given Bush some breathing space to revise course in Iraq.
Though pressures for withdrawal -- from the polls, the Iraq Study Group and the new Democratic majorities in Congress -- have isolated Bush politically, it's unlikely his critics can keep him from implementing policies that include an increase in troops.
Many lawmakers in both parties favor increasing the size of the Army and the Marine Corps. And even during the Vietnam War, members of Congress were slow to restrict the use of funds to fight it.
Besides, it's nearly two years until the next election.
Anything is possible
And though optimism about Iraq is minimal these days, it's always possible that changes in U.S. policy could produce a more positive result than analysts expect.
If that happens, Bush and his Republican Party could reap the political benefit, especially Sen. John McCain, who has urged sending more troops. Critics would be put on the defensive.
On the other hand, if the proposal Bush plans to formally unveil next month fails to improve a situation he now admits has not gone well, he could put fellow Republicans in a 2008 bind.
As long as most Republicans support the war, potential GOP presidential candidates will be reluctant to stray from that stance. But they could face severe problems in a general election because so many Democrats and independents want to end it. Even then, Bush's persistence may delay a definite end to the struggle and withdrawal of most U.S. troops until his successor's presidency.
Bush was asked if his legacy would extend beyond Iraq. He declined to speculate, noting he's been reading books about George Washington and adding: "My attitude is, if they're still analyzing No. 1, 43 ought not to worry about it and just do what he thinks is right."
And he observed that "most short-term historians," some of whom have already called him a failure, usually have political views and aren't "exactly objective."'
Still, the success or failure of the war in Iraq is likely to be central in judgments of the George W. Bush presidency.
Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.