Junto Boys

An Open Letter to the President (edited)

June 27th, 2005

Dear Mr. President,

I’ve no idea what your advisers are telling you, but based on my own experience in Washington I suspect they are talking more bluntly among themselves than they are to you. So I’m writing to deliver an unpleasant message you must hear, and hear now: We are in danger of losing the war in Iraq.

Think back to what happened in Vietnam. Even as our troops did better and better on the ground – as they killed more and more North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers and secured more and more of South Vietnam itself – support for that war eroded here at home. For example, the Tet offensive was a huge military victory for our forces – but a decisive political defeat in the US. Simply put, we didn’t lose the Vietnam war in Vietnam. We lost it in Washington.

It’s a race against time. As I’m sure you learned at Harvard Business School, in real life cash flow can dry up faster than it does in the spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations the company’s financial geniuses gin up for the securities analysts.

In war, public support is the equivalent of cash flow. So the question isn’t whether a war is going well, but whether a war is going well enough, and fast enough, to end in victory before public support gives out. And it’s obvious that public support for the war in Iraq has begun to erode, which means that from now on we are not only in a battle against our enemy overseas, but in a race against time here at home.

History teaches that once public support for a war starts to erode – no matter what may be the actual, on-the-ground situation – it erodes at an accelerating rate. But what matters most isn’t so much the actual date you project for when the two lines will intersect. Rather, what matters most is that you recognize these two lines now are on a collision course, and that you understand what this means: You have less time to win this war than you thought you had. So to win, you will need to fight harder.

Do whatever is necessary, and do it now.

First, give the generals all the troops they want.

Second, and more important, fight harder in Washington. To explain why this will help win the war in Iraq, let me tell you about how one of your predecessors acted domestically in a way that had a huge foreign impact. Shortly after President Reagan took office, our country’s 13,000 air-traffic controllers went on strike. Reagan ordered them back to work, and when they refused he did the one thing neither the controllers nor anyone else ever imagined he would do: he fired them all.

The ensuing political explosion is well known, but what isn’t well known is what effect the President’s decision had on the Soviet Union’s leaders. It terrified them, because they realized that in Ronald Reagan they were confronting a President who was willing to put all his chips on the table and go for broke no matter what might be the political consequences. I had access to a lot of top-secret intelligence in those days, and I can tell you that during the next few years there were several very dangerous things the Kremlin wanted to do, but refrained from doing purely out of fear over how President Reagan would respond.

With all respect, sir, your performance in Washington has been too weak. The terrorists in Iraq, their leaders who are hiding in caves, the mullahs in Teheran, the creep in Damascus and the nut in North Korea – they all see what is happening to your programs and your people, and the judgment they are reaching is this: if you aren’t willing to fight to the death in Washington, you aren’t willing to fight to the death in Iraq.

You need to start fighting in Washington just as hard as you expect our troops to fight in Iraq. And you need to keep fighting until the Potomac flows red with the blood of your political enemies. Personally, I think you’ll win more of your domestic battles than your advisers seem to think you’ll win. But what really matters is that by fighting to the death for your domestic programs, our country’s enemies will get the message that you are a man who will risk everything – everything – to win. And by itself this will markedly increase our chances for victory in Iraq.

The war is now entering its most dangerous phase, by which I mean that period of time during which we will either secure our victory or lose so much public support that our defeat becomes inevitable. The outcome will be determined by the decisions you make – both foreign and domestic – in the coming weeks.

God bless you, sir, for all you have done to keep us safe. Now, go get ‘em.

Respectfully,

Herbert E. Meyer

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council.