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Posted: 8:38 AM-

Bloomberg News

For Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, the difference between "real" and "reasonable" is the distance he's traveled on President George W. Bush's Iraq war policy.

In April, Romney said Bush's plan to send about 30,000 additional troops to Iraq had a "real chance" of succeeding. On July 26, he was more equivocal, saying in an interview: "I don't give that a high probability, I give it a reasonable probability."

With pessimism growing about the ability of a troop injection to overcome Iraq's sectarian violence, Romney, 60, and other Republicans who embraced the plan are gingerly laying the groundwork for a possible shift away from White House appeals to stay the course.

Romney, who isn't noted for jabs at Bush, is simply preparing for a call for a post-surge strategy, said Tom Rath, a senior adviser.

"That cannot be viewed as a sign of disloyalty or disrespect, but rather an inevitability in the political process," he said.

The issue, Rath said, "is how far any candidate should go in separating from the president."

Behind the semantic shift is a September day of reckoning for Bush's troop surge. That's when General David Petraeus will give Congress an assessment of the strategy, in the process putting a lens on Republican hopefuls and their plans for handling the conflict.

Romney isn't alone in opening a little space between himself and the administration on Iraq. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is also scouting for safer ground.

Vigorous Defense

Four months ago, he delivered a vigorous defense of the commander-in-chief to a Texas audience that included the president's father. In April 21 remarks at Texas A&M University, in College Station, Giuliani predicted the younger Bush's approach would yield "an overwhelming victory against terrorism."

Today Giuliani, 63, says the administration's fixation on Iraq has been a distraction in the war against global jihadism. In a July 19 interview with USA Today, he said efforts to battle al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Pakistan and Afghanistan are suffering because "America is too consumed by Iraq."

In an Aug. 1 interview with TV talk show host Charlie Rose, Giuliani said "there were several decisions that could have been made differently but weren't," among them "not paying attention to the quality of life of people in Iraq."

Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson, who voted to give the president war authorization in October 2002 and has yet to formally announce his candidacy, has also changed his tone.

"I would do essentially what the president is doing," he told Fox News when asked in March what he would do in Iraq.

In a June 19 speech in London, Thompson, 64, hit a different chord.

"Political realism is back in the ascendancy since the difficulties in Iraq," he said. "We have learned that geography, history, and ethnicity are important factors to consider in making decisions regarding today's enemies."

The exception among Republican presidential contenders is Arizona Senator John McCain, 70, who is as closely tied to the war as the president is; he continues to strongly support the president's policy.

The dilemma for Republicans is that the war remains popular with many Republicans who dominate primary elections even as the general public is clamoring for new answers, said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster who isn't working for any presidential candidate.

A July 20-22 CBS News/New York Times poll found that 57 percent of Republicans continue to approve of Bush's handling of the war, to 38 percent who disapprove. Seventy percent of independents, who will wield power in forthcoming elections, disapprove.

"It's a fine line to walk," said Fabrizio. Until now, any Republican who has called for Iraq benchmarks or any type of pullout strategy has been branded anti-war, he said.

"This is going to be a new entity," said Fabrizio. "We're going to split that baby and say the war was the right thing to do, but we can't let this go on indefinitely."

This balancing act is on display in many of Romney's war- related moves. While he supports the objective of the Iraq mission, he's voiced concern about the implementation of the policy.

"There is no guarantee that the new strategy pursued by General Petraeus will ultimately succeed," Romney wrote in an Aug. 1 letter to supporters, adding that the stakes are too high to undermine the troops charged with the mission before it has an opportunity to succeed.

Changes in Romney's rhetoric, adviser Rath said, reflect new information flowing out of Iraq. "To the extent you're seeing his tone modifying, it's because he's speaking from a greater level" of knowledge as data emerges about the situation on the ground, said Rath.

Vin Weber, Romney's policy chairman, said Romney has yet to decide whether to back a fresh approach to Iraq if the troop surge is deemed ineffectual.

"He is in the best position, whether or not he wants to take advantage of it," said Weber. "He was not involved in Washington and the decision to go to war."