Iraq Group Studies Hard, Still Fails
This column was written by Robert Kagan and William Kristol.
In the frenzied final week of the Iraq Study Group's deliberations, co-chairmen James Baker and Lee Hamilton took time out to pose for a photo spread for a fashion magazine, Men's Vogue. This might seem a dubious decision given the gravity of the moment and their self-appointed roles as the nation's saviors. The "wise men" who counseled Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam and the members of the Kissinger Commission who tried to reshape Ronald Reagan's Central American policies did not sit for Annie Leibovitz in the middle of their endeavors. Nor did they hire a mega-public relations firm to sell their recommendations (supposedly intended for the president) to the public at large, as Baker and Hamilton have done.
But we think the chairmen's self-promotion and big-time product marketing are perfectly understandable. They have to do something to distract attention from two unpleasant facts.
The first is that after nine months of deliberation and an unprecedented build-up of expectations that these sages would produce some brilliant, original answer to the Iraq conundrum, the study group's recommendations turn out to be a pallid and muddled reiteration of what most Democrats, many Republicans, and even Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officials have been saying for almost two years. Thus, according to at least six separate commission sources sent out to pre-spin the press, the Baker-Hamilton report will call for a gradual and partial withdrawal of American forces in Iraq, to begin at a time unspecified and to be completed by a time unspecified. The goal will be to hand over responsibility for security in Iraq to the Iraqis themselves as soon as this is feasible, and to shift the American role to training rather than fighting the insurgency and providing security. The decision of how far, how fast, and even whether to withdraw will rest with military commanders in Iraq, who will base their determination on how well prepared the Iraqis are to take over. Even after the withdrawal, the study group envisions keeping at least 70,000 American troops in Iraq for years to come.
To say that this is not a new idea is an understatement. Donald Rumsfeld and top military officials have from the beginning of the occupation three years ago aimed to do precisely what the Baker-Hamilton group now recommends. In 2003, the Pentagon set a goal of reducing the forces from 130,000 to 30,000 by the end of the year, handing responsibility for Iraq to the newly formed Iraqi Army. Every year since, the Pentagon has aimed to reduce U.S. forces substantially. This time last year, defense officials announced their intention to reduce the force of 150,000 to well under 100,000 by the end of 2006.
So now here comes the Iraq Study Group suggesting that the present force of about 140,000 should be reduced to around 70,000 by early 2008. But as with all similar plans previously devised by the Pentagon, the timing, according to the Washington Post's sources, "would be more a conditional goal than a firm timetable, predicated on the assumption that circumstances on the ground would permit it." As Democratic senator Jack Reed noted, the group's recommendations repeat "what some of us have been saying for a while." But, of course, the Baker plan will face the same challenges as all previous such suggestions. In the past, Pentagon desires to draw down the force foundered precisely because "circumstances on the ground" did not permit a reduction of American forces. Despite efforts to make it appear otherwise, then, the real recommendation of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group is "stay the course." For this we waited nine months?
One of the more striking aspects of the Iraq Study Group's report is that these recommendations are clearly not anyone's idea of the right plan. As the New York Times put it, they represent "a compromise between distinct paths that the group has debated since March." One commission source declared, "We reached a consensus, which in itself is remarkable." "Everyone felt good about where we ended up," said another. We're happy for them. But reaching consensus among the 10 members of the group was presumably not the primary goal of this exercise. The idea was to provide usable advice for the Bush administration that would help it move toward an acceptable outcome in Iraq. In that, the commission has failed.
There is another problem for Baker, of course, which justifies the money the commission is spending to hire the Edelman public relations firm. It is that the Baker commission report is, as the press likes to say, dead on arrival. Over the course of the past few weeks, and especially this past week, President Bush has made clear that he has no intention of following the commission's recommendations. In his press conference with the Iraqi prime minister this past Thursday, Bush took a direct slap at the Iraq Study Group. "I know there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq," he told reporters. But "this business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all."
Weekly Standard In the frenzied final week of the Iraq Study Group's deliberations, co-chairmen James Baker and Lee Hamilton took time out to pose for a photo spread for a fashion magazine, Men's Vogue. This might seem a dubious decision given the gravity of the moment and their self-appointed roles as the nation's saviors. The "wise men" who counseled Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam and the members of the Kissinger Commission who tried to reshape Ronald Reagan's Central American policies did not sit for Annie Leibovitz in the middle of their endeavors. Nor did they hire a mega-public relations firm to sell their recommendations (supposedly intended for the president) to the public at large, as Baker and Hamilton have done.
But we think the chairmen's self-promotion and big-time product marketing are perfectly understandable. They have to do something to distract attention from two unpleasant facts.
The first is that after nine months of deliberation and an unprecedented build-up of expectations that these sages would produce some brilliant, original answer to the Iraq conundrum, the study group's recommendations turn out to be a pallid and muddled reiteration of what most Democrats, many Republicans, and even Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officials have been saying for almost two years. Thus, according to at least six separate commission sources sent out to pre-spin the press, the Baker-Hamilton report will call for a gradual and partial withdrawal of American forces in Iraq, to begin at a time unspecified and to be completed by a time unspecified. The goal will be to hand over responsibility for security in Iraq to the Iraqis themselves as soon as this is feasible, and to shift the American role to training rather than fighting the insurgency and providing security. The decision of how far, how fast, and even whether to withdraw will rest with military commanders in Iraq, who will base their determination on how well prepared the Iraqis are to take over. Even after the withdrawal, the study group envisions keeping at least 70,000 American troops in Iraq for years to come.
To say that this is not a new idea is an understatement. Donald Rumsfeld and top military officials have from the beginning of the occupation three years ago aimed to do precisely what the Baker-Hamilton group now recommends. In 2003, the Pentagon set a goal of reducing the forces from 130,000 to 30,000 by the end of the year, handing responsibility for Iraq to the newly formed Iraqi Army. Every year since, the Pentagon has aimed to reduce U.S. forces substantially. This time last year, defense officials announced their intention to reduce the force of 150,000 to well under 100,000 by the end of 2006.
So now here comes the Iraq Study Group suggesting that the present force of about 140,000 should be reduced to around 70,000 by early 2008. But as with all similar plans previously devised by the Pentagon, the timing, according to the Washington Post's sources, "would be more a conditional goal than a firm timetable, predicated on the assumption that circumstances on the ground would permit it." As Democratic senator Jack Reed noted, the group's recommendations repeat "what some of us have been saying for a while." But, of course, the Baker plan will face the same challenges as all previous such suggestions. In the past, Pentagon desires to draw down the force foundered precisely because "circumstances on the ground" did not permit a reduction of American forces. Despite efforts to make it appear otherwise, then, the real recommendation of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group is "stay the course." For this we waited nine months?
One of the more striking aspects of the Iraq Study Group's report is that these recommendations are clearly not anyone's idea of the right plan. As the New York Times put it, they represent "a compromise between distinct paths that the group has debated since March." One commission source declared, "We reached a consensus, which in itself is remarkable." "Everyone felt good about where we ended up," said another. We're happy for them. But reaching consensus among the 10 members of the group was presumably not the primary goal of this exercise. The idea was to provide usable advice for the Bush administration that would help it move toward an acceptable outcome in Iraq. In that, the commission has failed.
There is another problem for Baker, of course, which justifies the money the commission is spending to hire the Edelman public relations firm. It is that the Baker commission report is, as the press likes to say, dead on arrival. Over the course of the past few weeks, and especially this past week, President Bush has made clear that he has no intention of following the commission's recommendations. In his press conference with the Iraqi prime minister this past Thursday, Bush took a direct slap at the Iraq Study Group. "I know there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq," he told reporters. But "this business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all."
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As said on Fox by Fred Barnes, just send these two analysts, Hamilton/Baker, to Syria and Iran to handle those negotions with the Iraqi nemesis. Well, maybe not, we could get another unauthorized Peanut Carter type agreement, ala North Korea.
Which, by the way, is still a Communist country to this day rendering the deaths of over 58000 of our soldiers over there absolutely useless.
And, yes, after we left Vietnam there was a civil war. Did it make a difference to anyone? Not one freaking bit.
We've become obsessed with Arabs in the same way we became obsessed with Asians after Pearl Harbor. Hiroshima and Nagazaki were not enough so we had to go to Korea and Vietnam just so we can vent more of our anger at anyone that looks Japanese.
I once had the chance to talk to Lee Hamilton about the Middle East and I told him he's as full of it as most of the US Congress is when it comes to this matter.
I'm not surprised him and Baker have hardly anything new to say about the war in Iraq. Why? Because they couldn't care less about Arabs. The 650,000 dead Iraqis, the 40 years of a ruthless military Israeli occupation in Palestine, and the three times Israel has invaded and destroyed Lebanon means nothing to them.
So this concern about Iraqi "democracy" is as fake as it gets and most Arabs know that. They are hardly impressed by it despite the deaths of 3000 of our soldiers.
So let's get out of Iraq now before we rack up another 58000 dead soldiers for no good reason.
Blaming their failures on others is appaernetly another area of aptitude.
These papers provide far more detail about the megalomaniacal delusions of the neo-conservative/liberal/fascist ideologues, like Mr. Kristol and Mr. Kagan.
I recommend a "Rebuilding America's Defenses" for a look at some of their most foolish and anti-human ideas.
The cowardly rats of the PNAC are jumping off of the sinking Bush ship as fast as they can, but make no mistake- these two men, and their neo-con cohorts are responsible for the disastrous situation that we now find ourselves in, as much, if not more, than anyone else.