Karl Rove and other GOP operatives like to tell the American public that President Bush is a man who has demonstrated strength and conviction when confronted with difficult situations. Unfortunately, many of the President’s critics view those same traits as an indication that the President is prone to stubbornness and is often unwilling to heed the advice of others.

A majority of foreign policy experts apparently agree with critics of the Bush administration…especially with regards to the recent surge in Iraq and the President’s overall strategy in the war on terror. The numbers are reported in the most recent survey by Foreign Policy magazine.

As Congress and the White House await the September release of a key progress report on Iraq, 53 percent of the experts polled by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress said they now oppose Bush’s troop build-up.

That is a 22 percentage point jump since the strategy was announced early this year.

The survey of 108 experts, including Republicans and Democrats, showed opposition to the so-called “surge” across the political spectrum, with about two-thirds of conservatives saying it has been ineffective or made things worse in Iraq.

Foreign Policy, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the experts polled on May 23 to June 26 included former government officials in senior positions including secretary of state, White House national security adviser and top military commanders.

Foreign Policy said seven of 10 experts supported the redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq. Experts have increasingly cited the war as the root cause of what they believe to be U.S. failure to win in its war on terrorism.

More than 80 percent of the experts said they expected another September 11-scale attack on the United States over the next decade, despite what they described as significant improvements among U.S. security, law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

A decade from now, the Middle East still will be reeling from the ill-effects of the Iraq war, particularly heightened Sunni-Shi’ite tensions in the region, 58 percent said.

Thirty-five percent believed Arab dictators will have been discouraged from pursuing political reforms as a result.

Only 3 percent believed the United States will achieve its goal of rebuilding Iraq into a beacon of democracy within the next 10 years.

Despite the President’s strong support from a handful of apologists, it appears that most experts simply view George Bush’s intransigence as a sign of a fatally flawed strategy and an unwillingness to accept the realities that have become painfully obvious some four plus years after the decision to invade Iraq.

While the President holds to his vision of a burgeoning democracy and the presence of a close American ally in the volatile Middle East, most experts believe that the decision to topple the Hussein regime will do little more than radicalize the region.

As regional populations grow increasingly skeptical of the presence and intentions of the United States, the leadership of these nations will likely seek to distance themselves from the United States. Further, the growing calls for a rejection of Western culture could lead many Middle Eastern countries towards more radical versions of Islamic law and a growing hostility towards the United States.

During the announcement that Karl Rove would be leaving Washington and his service in the Bush administration, the President stated, “I’ll be on the road behind you here in a little bit”. By all accounts, that moment can’t come soon enough for many experts and most Americans.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater