Most people expected that if President Bush didn't surrender to the oh-so-wise Baker commission his authority as CIC then the Democrats would squawk. But at least one advisor of former President George H. W. Bush is acting surprised and dismayed that the current President Bush hasn't simply rolled over and embraced every strange suggestion of the Iraq Study Group.
Former White House advisers to George H.W. Bush are keenly disappointed and concerned about the current President Bush's initial reaction to the report by the Iraq Study Group.
They consider him rather dismissive of the group's conclusions, issued yesterday, which include the view that current Iraq policy is failing. The group recommends a variety of important changes, such as assigning U.S. troops to play more of an advisory and training role and less of a combat role. The ISG also recommends that the United States withdraw most of its combat brigades by early 2008 and that the administration increase diplomatic efforts, including starting talks with Iran and Syria and energetically working toward an Israeli-Palestinian solution.
"We have a classic case of circling the wagons," says a former adviser to Bush the elder. "If President Bush changes his policy in Iraq in a fundamental way, it undermines the whole premise of his presidency. I just don't believe he will ever do that."
This advisor has such courage that he/she declines to be identified - yet another anonymous source. However, let's look and see if President Bush is alone in this assessment. Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute served on one of the ISG's working groups, and writes today in the Weekly Standard.
For the second time since 9/11, Americans have been treated to the undemocratic phenomenon of private citizens assuming the responsibilities and prerogatives of elected officials. First we had the 9/11 Commission. Not content to present its findings and recommendations to the president and Congress, the commission went on a nationwide lobbying campaign to persuade America, and pressure its representatives, into accepting its "advice." Now we have the Baker-Hamilton Commission, officially known as the Iraq Study Group, self-consciously following in its predecessor's footsteps.
From its paltry discussion of America's counterinsurgency in Iraq, to its recommendations about troop levels, to its scathing condemnation of American diplomacy under Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi politics under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, to its embrace of "engagement" with Syria and Iran, and to its unstated but clear call for American pressure on Israel to concede more "land-for-peace" to the Palestinians, the ISG report is strong on assertions but weak on arguments.
Ouch. In concluding he adds:
We didn't really need to wait nine months for a report that could have been written eight months ago. We already had Secretary Rumsfeld's and General Abizaid's unsuccessful tactics. We already knew what James Baker thought about Syria, Iran, Israel, and Palestine. For those of us who saw some of the deliberations of the Iraq Study Group, the report is less than the discussions that produced it. Even a Washington establishment hopelessly spooked by Iraq should have done better.
Perhaps that's because, as I've argued, the recommendations of the ISG were predetermined by the choice of personnel and by the political and military realities at home and in Iraq, respectively. I see someone from the other side of the aisle agrees that it was predetermined, but for different reasons.
Hence the conclusions of the Baker-Hamilton report were predetermined virtually from the start. We could all have expected that the group's only unequivocal conclusions would restate the obvious -- that we need an eventual withdrawal of troops, that there needs to be more "robust regional diplomacy," that Iraqi forces need to assume more of the security burden, and that there will be no hope of a political solution without some cooperation from Syria and Iran. Duh!
The unrealistic approach to Syria and Iran rears it's head again. We've already seen that neither the Israelis nor the current Iraqi leadership are impressed. Neither are the Kurds.
In the first Kurdish reaction to the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report, Mr Barzani said the Iraq's Kurds were not committed to the report "in any way".
Members of the ISG did not visit Kurdish regions of northern Iraq while compiling their report, Mr Barzani said, calling that a "huge shortcoming".
He was critical of the report's emphasis on strengthening Iraq's central government, apparently "in contrast to the principles of federalism and the constitution, on which the new Iraq is built".
Calling the recommendations "inappropriate", Mr Barzani said: "We do not accept anything that opposes the constitution and the interests of the Iraqi and Kurdistan people."
His stance was backed up shortly afterwards by Iraq's President, Jalal Talabani.
"President Jalal Talabani supports the stand of the president of the Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani on the report," his office said, suggesting some of the reports recommendations ran contrary to Iraqi government policy.
The ISG is winning fans all over. It's not just the White House that has doubts. It isn't so much a realistic policy prescription as an attempt at Solomon-like splitting of the baby. To that extent, maybe the ISG is wiser than they seem, and are trying to convince the American people and their government to choose from either "cut and run" or "stay the course," the compromise position being now seen as too silly to consider further.
12/10/06 1345: Another with significant disdain for the ISG report is Mark Steyn.
The Surrender Gran'pas assert that Iran and Syria have "an interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq." This, to put it mildly, is news to the Iranians and Syrians, who have concluded that what's in their interest is much more chaos in Iraq. For a start, the Americans get blamed for it, which reduces America's influence in the broader Middle East, not least among Iran and Syria's opposition movements. Furthermore, the fact that they're known to be fomenting the chaos gives the mullahs, Assad and their proxies tremendous credibility in the rest of the Muslim world. James Baker has achieved the perfect reductio ad absurdum of diplomatic self-adulation: he's less rational than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
If they're lucky, this document will be tossed in the trash and these men and women will be the laughingstocks of posterity. But, if it's not shredded and we embark down this path, then the Baker group will be emblematic of something far worse.
