The mood of the country was foul. The President's approval ratings were in the high thirties or low forties, The Iraq war was going badly for the United States, with our troops being picked off like sitting ducks by the growing insurgency. Or, at least that's the way the drumbeat of stories from big media groups had the picture painted. The troops, the generals, the Defense Secretary, and the President, while admitting there were difficulties, all thought at least a little differently, and certainly there were some stories of success. But the rise in terrorist attacks, leading to more civilian deaths from additional sectarian violence was a concern. Something had to be done.
This was a job for supermen - enter the Iraq Study Group, also known as "The Justice League of America," a collection of wise persons so worldly that they would certainly be able to get a handle on this, and maybe even the other problems in the Middle East. Surely they could pull together all the data, produce a cogent analysis devoid of partisanship and rancor, and tie both sides of the debate to a rational, evidence-based approach with success only a Friedman Unit or two away.
The commission produced it's bipartisan report (executive summary here; full text and appendices in pdf) yesterday to much fanfare and huzzahs, at least in some quarters. The NY Times doesn't seem to think much of the commission and it's mission, sneering that the entire premise of the project was political cover for the much despised White House occupant only.
When President Bush insisted that the Iraq Study Group would not provide cover for the White House to chart a “graceful exit” of American troops, he was missing the whole point. The much-anticipated report from the bipartisan panel is precisely about political cover. That is a good thing, if only Mr. Bush has the sense to embrace it.
Iraq is so far gone that nobody expected the panel to come up with a breakthrough solution. As the co-chairmen — former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton — began their letter accompanying yesterday’s report, “there is no magic formula to solve the problems of Iraq.” And the study was never going to change the basic facts: there is no victory to be had in Iraq, and however American troops withdraw, they will leave behind a deadly mess.
Its real mission was to avert the worst scenario, in which a stubborn George W. Bush spends the next two years blindly insisting he will accept nothing short of victory, while Iraq keeps spiraling out of control and the Iraqis get no closer to being able to contain the chaos after the Americans leave.
That the NY Times considers Mr. Bush a failure is not surprise. What is surprising is the astonishingly palpable contempt in their rhetoric. One usually reserves such venom for serial killers and child rapists, and not for the elected leader of a democratic nation trying to do the right things against a genocidal enemy. The incoherence of the NY Times screed reaches it's pinnacle in the concluding paragraph.
The Iraq report is a deeply diplomatic document, stuffed with “coulds” and “mights.” It is, all in all, exactly the kind of shades-of-gray thinking that Mr. Bush despises, and exactly what he needs to get the country out of the hole he has dug.
"Shades of gray thinking" will solve the problems of the Middle East and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism? Not. Evidence to support such a position, i.e., when has it worked before? None.
The honest truth is that the ISG report is a goulash of unlikely policy prescriptions all of which were predestined both by the people chosen for the task and by the pre-existing political and military conditions. ISG leader James Baker is noted for crafting unusual diplomacies. For example, the commission's suggestion that we convince Syria to allow a thorough investigation into the Rafik Hariri and Pierre Gemayal assassinations would not likely occur to mere diplomatic mortals. In exchange the ISG offers to let Syria help stabilize Iraq. Much as they've done for Lebanon, I imagine.
The President has repeatedly asserted that he has laid the course for Iraq based on the advice of the generals in charge. Assuming that to be the case, and given the comments of Gen. Abizaid recently there's no evidence that it's not, were the ISG to advise immediate withdrawal they'd be advising a policy diametrically opposed to that of the generals, militarily untenable and hardly a prescription for harmony. This disappointed those on the left who, having used the Iraq war for electoral advance, believed that the election ratified even their most extreme views, particularly the view that the mistaken Iraq War is not just unsalvageable, but already lost.
On the other hand, there has been obvious turmoil in Iraq, with little evidence thus far that current methods would disarm the militias and insurgents and produce democratic harmony, so "staying the course" was not a viable choice either, the politically untenable position. So we get a "third way," the divine compromise, otherwise known as the waffler's refuge. That neither Israel nor those most affected, the Iraqi leadership, likes the advice is unsurprising.
There is no timetable for withdrawal ... but it is expected that most of the troops will be withdrawn by 2008. There is a call for stepping up training of Iraqi troops ... a step-up that has been called for and acted upon on several previous occasions. There is a call for national reconciliation and governance ... something that the leaders in Iraq's new government have been working toward already, with no evidence that that work is affecting the actions of the terrorists. There is a call for harmonizing the approach with Iran and Syria, seeking their assistance ... the same Iran who has been plunging ahead with a nuke program and arming the Shiite militias and Hezbollah terrorists, and the same Syria who has been supplying Hezbollah terrorists, shielding former Saddam Baathists and, allegedly, assassinating Lebanese politicians. Maybe even the same Syria that was alleged to have received the missing Iraqi WMD.
In short, the advice of the commission was predetermined by the political situation in Washington, the military situation in Baghdad and the make-up of this blue-ribbon bipartisan panel. It was a fait accompli. Does it give political cover to the President? Not really. The NY Times will be demonizing George W. Bush for centuries to come.
12/7/06 1415: For more, please see Hugh Hewitt's excellent summary with the plethora of links he has collected. Also Kim Priestap at Wizbang, with the NY Post's priceless cover.
12/7/06 2115: See also Ace of Spades with a realistic appraisal of where Iraq stands. I do disagree on at least one point. Ace wrote:
The sudden determination -- now the Conventional Wisdom, according to the media -- that everything has gone to hell and that we must get out immediately if not sooner is almost entirely a creation of the Democratic victory in November, and the media's consequent embold[ening] to say clearly and forcefully the things they've been thinking since, oh, before the war began, and since the one-day "quagmire" in the actual invasion when our troops had to stop moving due to sandstorms.
I'd say that CW was pushed much earlier, in order to create the Democratic victory in November. That victory didn't embolden the media; 'twas the other way 'round. He also wrote:
The cycle of violence ends when so much violence is inflicted on one opponent or both that one or both sues for peace. War ends when one or both sides can no longer stomach seeing their children killed.
That's realism.
Brutally honest, but seemingly true. What defeated Japan in WWII wasn't the sudden destruction of two large cities, but rather the sudden destruction of their will to fight.
