ARTICLE: With Iraq Speech, Bush to Pull Away From His Generals, By Michael Abramowitz, Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, January 10, 2007; Page A01

Went on WAPO radio with Jim Bohannon yesterday morn for quick 5 minutes. Ended up talking new counter-insurgency and modularization of the army, even tough pre-interview with producer was all about troop surge strategy.

Here's (at least) what I said to the producer off-air:

1) I like the people picks of late (Gates, Petraeus, Fallon, Negroponte, McConnell).

2) I can support a surge, plus a Baghdad focus, plus new jobs-creation spending and more State oversight on the ground for reconstruction (though I fear CSIS Rick Barton's critique of too little, too late is true)

3) If all that was combined with a diplomatic initiative to dialogue on regional security issues with Syria, Iran, Israel and Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, the EU, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Russia and China (with all putting some skin in the game--either literal and figurative), THEN I'd be behind this 100 percent.

4) Absent 3 (or at least the talking part designed to start some permanent regional security forum), I have a hard time foreseeing success here.

5) For now, it's our lack of strategic imagination on diplomacy that's hurting most, and since I don't expect Bush to fire Rice, I think Bush is pretty much done with his presidency in terms of initiatives in foreign policy. To me, this is too much "stay the course" stll and not enough serious effort to keep the Big Bang rolling. In short, this is not a strategy to win, but one designed to keep not losing and basically pass this problem on to the next administration.

The one wild card left for me with Bush and Cheney is if they try a significant air strike on Iran before leaving office.