What to think about Bush's Iraq plan? Well, what do the NYT and the Council on Foreign Relations say?

The NYT said with this plan, Bush is "taking a risk, challenging not only the Democratic leadership in Congress but also some members of his own party, who are openly skeptical that the new policy will work and who, unlike the president, will be running for re-election."

The Times acknowledges that "Wartime clashes between presidents and the Congress are a familiar thread in American history." But not since Nixon, has an American president, in the Times own words, "so boldly expanded an unpopular war."

Bush rejected the option to scale back combat forces in Iraq and focus on engaging Iran and Syria because according to the Times, this would only lead to a "graceful exit." Bush is only interested at this point in "victory" in Iraq. Bush believes that at this point, Iraq cannot quell the sectarian violence on its own.

As the Times reminded its readers, "This is the same president who, after winning re-election in 2004, famously told reporters that he had 'earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.'"

The Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think tank asked some of its experts what they thought of Bush's new plan. These were some of their responses:

Peter Beinhart: "Contrary to earlier press reports, America will now only surge if Nuri Maliki's government makes a deal to share oil wealth and reintegrate former Baathists, things it has shown no willingness to do. Whether the Bush administration really makes the surge contingent on such moves will depend not only on what happens in Iraq in the months to come, but what happens in Washington in the coming hours and days."

Stephen Biddle: "Changing the mission of U.S. troops to emphasize population security for Iraqi civilians, for example...So is the replacement of the old, open-ended U.S. commitment with a new willingness to make our presence conditional on Iraqi political progress toward reconciliation.

"But there are also some important shortcomings. In particular, the new troop commitments still leave us well short of the usual rules of thumb for the number of troops needed to pacify a city the size of Baghdad, much less the rest of central Iraq.

"So the new strategy is a long-shot gamble...After all, failure in Iraq would do grave damage to U.S. interests—it may be worth a long shot gamble to get even a small chance at averting disaster."

Max Boot: "Pulling out now could turn Iraq into a Rwanda-style genocidal civil war...There are only two realistic alternatives: decrease or increase the size of U.S. forces. The former strategy runs a great risk that the Iraqi Security Forces, even if provided with more U.S. trainers, will disintegrate in the face of greater sectarian violence. The latter strategy is far from foolproof but offers probably the greatest chance of improving conditions on the ground.

"Will 21,500 extra troops make a big difference? Based on classic counterinsurgency calculations (1 soldier or policeman per 40 or 50 civilians), pacifying Baghdad, a city of 6 million people, requires a force of some 150,000. The beefed-up U.S. force in Baghdad still will be less than 40,000 strong. Even if the Iraqis provide some reliable forces to work with them, this would be sufficient to control only a portion of the city—Sunni and mixed Sunni-Shia neighborhoods. Sadr City, where some 2 million Shia live, would probably remain in the grip of the Mahdi Army. This is far from ideal, but if a mixed Iraqi-U.S. force could have success in stabilizing even a good chunk of Baghdad this would represent major progress. At best the troop surge will buy time for much-needed reforms, assuming that the Iraqis are willing to make them. At worst it will have no impact at all. But I think it is worth one last shot before we throw up our hands in despair and concede defeat."

Steven Cook: "The Bush administration seems to want to correct past mistakes, but does not have the resources to do so effectively. More interesting than the so-called "surge" is the administration's emphasis on devoting additional resources to reconstruction and job creation for Iraqis. In the abstract, these initiatives are positive, but they are based on the premise that economic development can ameliorate the logic of sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq. This is a dubious assumption as it gives short shrift to the primary political issues that contribute to uncertainty and instability in Iraq. The Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds have widely divergent views about who should control Iraq, how the country's resources should be distributed, and how the basic governing institutions will function. Unfortunately, given circumstances on the ground there is very little the United States can do militarily or politically to alter this state of affairs. It is difficult to admit, but Iraq may very well be lost."

Michael Gerson: "For the first time since the fall of Baghdad, the president has set out a realistic plan to secure the citizens of that city in order to allow political and economic progress to move forward. Much will depend on the performance of the Iraqis themselves, but America at least has defined a necessary, measurable goal, and promised the resources and troops to meet it. In the process, the president has shown that he is unimpressed by the conventional foreign policy wisdom. Instead of going to Iran as a supplicant, he is sending a carrier strike group to the region. Instead of abandoning a struggling democracy, he asserts that democracy is worth fighting for, and that our long-term security depends on democratic progress. Instead of seeking cover for retreat, he points out that retreat may also have unintended consequences, including genocidal levels of violence in Iraq. This new approach is likely to put his critics on the defensive, at least for a time. The commander-in-chief has proposed a new course, and skilled military leaders believe it will work. Given the stakes, it is hard to argue that America should not even try."

James Hoge: "Counterinsurgency experts find wholly inadequate to the security challenge the number of additional troops and the short time envisioned for their activation. Unless conditions in Iraq noticeably improve, Bush will lose his remaining leverage and will finish out his presidential term isolated and marginalized. As the 2008 elections draw near, division will grow sharper within Republican ranks between supporters and doubters of escalation. And Democratic presidential candidates will feel heat from the party's base to embrace a quick disengagement. The most realistic outlook is for civil strife between Shias and Sunnis to rage on for a number of years until there is a clear winner, a compromise borne of exhaustion or a break up of the country. The challenge for the United States will be to keep the entire, oil-rich region from descending into chaos. No more important crisis faces the United States in the year ahead."

William Nash: I found the president's speech incomplete and disappointing. On the diplomatic side he once again antagonized Iran and Syria, and left no room for any cooperation. Politically, his "benchmarks" for Iraqi progress and goals for democracy were weak and unrealistic. He failed to articulate the consequences of Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks. Militarily, he promised priority on Baghdad and Anbar and increased activity in countering Syrian and Iranian interference, but not how the latter would be accomplished—empty threats or more conflict? The use of sectarian-based Iraqi forces to bring security to Baghdad is problematic—some army and police units are the problem, not the solution. The ability to double our reconstruction teams in a reasonable time is suspect. Finally, he returned to his long-used scare tactics about what the consequences of failure in Iraq would mean—vastly overstated.

Vali Nasr: "This is not a strategy that can turn Iraq around, but runs the danger of worsening things. There are not enough troops to impose an iron will on Iraq, but an increase in troops suggests that the United States is looking to expand the scope of its security commitment, especially by going after Shia militias which could provoke a broader Shia insurgency in Iraq. The president's strategy also lacks a political roadmap for reconciliation. There is violence in Iraq because there is no political agreement among Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds. The new strategy presents no roadmap out of this. It puts benchmarks before a failed national unity objective without specifying why a plan that has failed for a year will now work—after a period of escalation of tensions. There is no detail as to how Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds will be brought to the table, what is the framework of negotiations, and how can Shias and Kurds be assured that concessions they make will be met by a reduction in the insurgency (a year of U.S. concessions to Sunnis made no dent in the insurgency). In fact, it sounds as if the administration understands that reconciliation is not possible so why bother dwelling on details. At best this new strategy will keep Iraq on its current course; and at worse it will exacerbate the situation, something that would require more surges."

Gideon Rose: The changes the president has suggested to the Bush administration's policy in Iraq are generally sensible, and the logic behind them is sound. But given how badly the situation there has deteriorated over the last three and a half years, the new approach is unfortunately much too little, much too late. Stuff has happened, as Donald Rumsfeld might say, and there is no good reason to believe that Iraq's descent into further chaos and open civil war can be reversed. The president is correct to point out that failure will be a disaster for Iraq, the Middle East more generally, and the United States itself. One can only wish that his administration had taken this concept to heart from the beginning and planned and acted accordingly. Unfortunately, the real tasks at hand now are managing the failure so as limit its fallout and transitioning to a post-Iraq American foreign policy.

Steven Simon: "By framing the effort as 'a supporting role,' the president puts the onus on the Iraqi government to staunch the violence and work harder to lure Sunnis into a unity government. So the new approach serves two purposes: it responds to Americans who want to see a change of course, while creating the impression that if it does not work, it will be because the Iraqis have failed us."

Gary Samore: "Unfortunately, an American withdrawal from Iraq under current conditions is likely to leave Iraq itself and the region as a whole in even greater peril."