By The River

On Wednesday night, President Bush will address the nation and tell us how he plans to escalate the war in Iraq. As you watch this tragedy unfold, you will be seeing one of the greatest flaws in our political system dramatized before your eyes.

We have no good way to remove a President who has failed miserably and lost the support of a significant portion of the American people. In Great Britain, in Germany, in Israel, and other parliamentary systems, a leader in Bush's position would not be a leader anymore. His government would have fallen, and a new leader more in tune with the will of the people, at least in theory, would have taken his place. In America, where the President is halfway between a king and a premier, we can only attempt to impeach. The bar is set high against that possibility, and it has never actually been done. President Richard Nixon would have been removed from office in 1974, but he resigned instead. Removing Bush from office would give us Cheney as the new President. The mind reels.

So Bush blunders on, still able to use the war powers of the Presidency to commit troops to battle. And what troops will these be? Not fresh reserves drawn from the people. They will mostly be tired men on their third, fourth, or fifth tour of battle, some forced to stay in Iraq for months after they thought they would be home with their families. He will throw them back into a civil war between Sunni and Shiite militias, and some will die, and in the end the result will be the same as if he had ordered them all home for the recent Christmas. That is the sad truth. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, to use the Vietnam phrase.

Thankfully, the newly empowered Democrats say they will oppose the escalation, as well they ought to given how it was the Iraq disaster that gave them their majority. They need backbone and the courage to do the right thing, which is to end U.S. involvement in Iraq within six months. The result--I can't say it enough--will be the same as if it was six years.