What Bush Will Do

Gerard Baker is surely right about the broad nature of the president's likely decision:

More even than a president normally is, Mr Bush is alone with this decision. He can choose to manage the messy consequences of his Iraq gamble, cut his and the world’s losses and wind it down. But if he does that he knows for sure his presidency will be judged a colossal failure. His vision of democracy in the Middle East will be a bloody shambles.

He is more likely to think, I suspect, as he reflects alone in the next few weeks, that he still has a chance to change that verdict — to bring all that America’s might can muster and give it one final, serious, push for success. It is, surely, at least, what he should do.

Somehow, however, I don't think rearranging the troops with a temporary surge will ever amount to "all that America's might can muster." And there's no evidence that the president is attempting anything much more ambitious. As I said before: if he adds 50,000 more troops, we'll know he's serious. Short of that, it's all spin - paid for by others' lives.

(Photo: Brooks Kraft/Corbis for Time.)