Selling the War Strategy

The number one determinant of a successful rollout of a new product, business strategy, or start-up is the ability to sell the vision to the target market and potential investors alike. One can have the greatest vision in the world, but if he/she cannot sell it, it will never be a success. By selling, I do not mean simply spouting a pitch line or meeting with one or two stakeholders…I mean constant evangelization, sharing, and growing one’s vision. Every great company is founded on the ability of its management to aggressively verbalize its mission statement and corporate vision. A successful strategy also requires management to address its competition and underscore their “value advantage” versus that of others in the market. As the market and stakeholder sentiment changes, successful companies tailor their strategies to meet the market needs while upholding the underlying corporate vision. Organizations that do not leverage this approach will eventually lose market share to their competitors and fade from the space altogether, whether their core products/business was superior or not. Therefore, willingness of the market and stakeholders to adopt a company’s vision is a function of the company’s ability or willingness to drive it.

Applying the above theory to the Iraq War provides an interesting case study in how the Bush Administration failed to adequately evangelize the war to the people of the United States and as a result lost the battle of public opinion to its primary competitors: the Democratic Left and the insurgency. Let’s start with the facts: according to CNN poll statistics the approval rating for the war in Iraq went from 72% (3/03 During Iraqi Freedom) to 35% (6/06 during the height of the mid-term campaign). At no point, did the public approval rating of the war rise above 72% and has decreased steadily as the campaign wore on. The Iraq War has essentially been comprised of two phases: 1) Operation Iraqi Freedom during the Spring of 2003 during which US Forces crushed Saddam and took Baghdad during a period of three weeks, and 2) Sustained Insurgency that has remained constant since the late Summer of 2003. Two distinctly different periods that had distinctly different public approval ratings and that require two distinctly different marketing strategies. Rewind to early 2003, the value statement for invading Iraq was an easy sell (I’ll overly simplify it for this essay): A madman whom we have been dealing with for 13 years and is a material support of Islamic terrorism has built up a store of WMD that poses a grave threat to our national security. It’s an easy sell and the world agrees with the intelligence (remember this is 2003), so we go in and rapidly bring down Saddam….big win for the US, big win for the war on terror. In the United States, Bush’s Iraq War is now the darling of the “market.” Fast forward to 2006, the military has sustained over 10 times the amount of casualties sustained during the initial push to Baghdad yet remains vigilant in the fight. This being said, the US has routed insurgents in every battle, destroyed many top leaders including the head of Al Qaeda-Iraq, and continues to dismantle the lingering insurgency of less than 10,000. Our military leaders and soldiers remain cautiously vigilant and remain committed to the original mission of liberating Iraq. Meanwhile, we have a mainstream media that asserts defeat on a daily basis.

The bottom line is that the administration has failed miserably in driving the sentiment of the public in regard to the Iraq War. Instead of being on a war footing, the vast majority of the American public refuses to accept that we are even at war. How can this be a strategy for success? Try telling the Marine who is locked in a deadly firefight with Al Qaeda insurgents in Ramadi that he is not in a all-out war…..as our President, George Bush needs to spend less time commissioning studies that outline steps to “manage” the war and more time seeking expert advice on how to “sell” the war. Whether the American public likes it or not, we are at war and as a public we desperately need a leader that can galvanize opinion or else our strategy for success will never get off the ground.