ABSTRACT
Professor Eliot Cohen was advised to wear a tie instead of his usual bowtie for the meeting with the President. On 11 December 2006 Cohen, who works at Johns Hopkins, went with Stephen Biddle of the Council of Foreign Relations and retired general Jack Keane to meet with President George W. Bush in order to present a plan for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in Iraq. They presented a research-based alternative to the strategy of the Bush administration that seemed more based in the rhetorical insistence on victory rather than on a military plan for achieving victory. In the weekend before the meeting at the White House General Keane had arranged a seminar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) with the purpose of designing a new strategy for Iraq based on inputs from innovative military commanders like Colonel McMasters and AEI-reseachers like Fred Kagan. Following the meeting with Keane, Biddle and Cohen the President came around to the need for a new strategy, and shortly after announced the so-called Surge in Iraq which actually turned the tide for the Americans (Ricks 2009).
