Mobilizing Support

If Congress funds a larger Army over the next five years, the best effect may be on the troops themselves.

While I doubt Congress would support actually using the new troops anywhere, they will help existing rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The President has some time to fight without pressure from Congress to pull troops out of Iraq. Even the Baker commission doesn't insist on strict timetables to leave.

More importantly, the sense of Congress paying for a gearing up of our war effort will be a tangible signal to our troops that we intend to win the war. My main worry since the election is that our troops will think we now don't want to win and so they will not reenlist to fight a war the country won't win anyway. Soldiers are willing to die to defend us and to seek victory. But no soldier wants to be the last casualty in a war that is lost.

So while Congress pays for more troops, the President must embark on speaking tours at American military bases. He must tell our troops that we are in the war to win. He must assure them that every effort will be made to support them to victory. The word victory must be used a lot. The objective is to keep our troops committed to fighting and winning.

Since the fall of 2003, I've assumed we were in a race between winning the war by turning over the fight to Iraqis and losing support of the American people to wage the war. I think we are losing that race. We win--but too slowly.

But a decision by Congress to expand the Army implicitly slows down the losing public support side of the race. For a while anyway. Congress will have signed on to winning since expanding the Army is clearly about Iraq. For a while anyway.

So the President's job becomes to rally the military.

I've long complained that the President has failed to rally the country. I've wanted him to speak every day on this because I have been acutely aware of the race against time. But he has not done this and it is too late to rally the country. But our troops want us to win and are committed to winning. The President is determined to win. Of this I am sure. He must convey this determination to our troops and focus on rallying this last major constituency for winning.

This is the real opportunity that we have with an apparent decision to build a larger Army. We must take the opportunity. And win the war.