Let’s be clear… if the war in Iraq ends badly, it will not be Bush’s fault. On this much we can all agree. But I wonder now, given the political posturing over the pending war appropriations bill, whether or not there is a larger plan involving a Republican strategy to take back ground lost in the 2006 election.

First, it’s time to face it. The war in Iraq will end badly. Whether we pull out in 5 months or 5 years, the puppet regime we installed as a government there will crash and burn. We can quibble about how much blood will be spilled in the process; about whether the result will be 3 independent countries; whether Iraq will be divvied up by it’s neighbors; or whether it will emerge as a whole nation. Whether it will proffer some sort of pseudo-democracy ala Egypt, the faux-democracy cum theocracy of Iran, the tribal structure of Afghanistan, or, however unlikely, a true western style democracy. Who knows? It’s ultimately not our choice, as it’s more than a little clear that we lack the stomach (political will) or the resources to control the situation. It will be what it will be. Better sooner than later to my mind, but I doubt the outcome will be substantially different. And I’m guessing that to varying degrees, the administration is aware of this “rock and a hard place” dilemma.

This leaves the administration to basically choose on whose watch this debacle occurs. Does Bush end it now and suffer the political embarrassment of the collapse of his defining move as President? Or does he leave it for the ’08 guy and still suffer the abuse that will be heaped on him, just posthumously? It’s not clear that Bush matters in this anymore. The question is, what benefits the Republicans more?

Should the war drag on into the ’08 election, its increasing unpopularity will doubtless cause a repeat of the spanking the Republicans received in ’06. This will put them in a severe minority position hole which will take them 4-6 years minimum to dig out of. I don’t think this is a tenable position for them.

The other option? End the war before the ’08 election, and blame it convincingly on the Democrats. I think the Republicans are aware that the public at large is still pretty naive about what will happen when we pull out. I doubt that people are prepared for the ensuing economic turmoil the resultant Mideast instability will cause. Oil prices will spike, driving up consumer goods costs and hurting every American in his own wallet. I don’t think people (as a whole) are expecting that.

So here’s the plan (so I speculate). Bush will tow the line on the spending bill vetoing anything with a timetable. Congress will pass a few interim measures to prop up the effort through the summer. But in a few months Bush will announce that he is being forced to reduce troop levels because of the Democrat’s unwillingness to pass an acceptable spending bill. Note, this will be heavily pitched as the Democrat’s failure, not his unwillingness to sign. Iraq will collapse and the economy will be impacted as described above. All just in time for the heat of the ’08 election season. Republicans will make lots of noise about how things were just economically dandy until the Democrats took power and then everything went to hell. This will be the cornerstone of the Republican ’08 election message.

The scary part is… it just might work.