High Decision Time  William F. Buckley  2/21/2007 8:56:13 AM -
William F. Buckley  President Bush is uneasily situated as
commander in chief of a nation at war. The first challenge of
course is to win the war. But obstacles multiply, not so much in
Iraq as in America.  In Iraq, the situation appears to be
frozen. The insurgency seems to have been weakened by the
resolute security measures of the past month, but the weakening
is not to be confused with large steps toward defeat. We have
faced, for several years, a wretched factor, identified as such
by Donald Rumsfeld: The supply of insurgents is apparently self-
generating. You kill one, and a replacement appears. For that
reason Mr. Bush is without hard good news in his pocket, of the
kind that would win political campaigns, let alone land wars.
And Bush is without the resources normally thought of as
available to someone directing a war on behalf of the most
powerful country in the world. Specifically, he has asked for
21,000 extra troops. His difficulties