I can understand why the folks at Powerline are upset. However, I think it has more to do with the liberal editorializing in a hard "newz" story than anything else, so take this with a grain of salt.
*****
Say It Ain't So, W!
Power Line
Tomorrow President Bush will meet with Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton to discuss the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. The group's report will be issued next month, but presumably its conclusions have more or less taken shape. Based on the leaking that is currently going on, the news could hardly be worse:
<<< A top U.S. intelligence official has been meeting with Middle East counterparts to discuss proposals expected from the Baker commission on Iraq, Middle East sources have told Newsday. >>>
How's that for multilateralism? The report's conclusions apparently are being cleared in advance by Middle Eastern intelligence officials.
<<< The proposals reportedly include an approach to Iran and Syria - a policy that Robert Gates, a member of the commission, has argued for.***
Rarely has a government report been more eagerly awaited than the one being prepared by former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat, about how the U.S. can leave Iraq. >>>
I would have said the question is how the U.S. can win in Iraq.
<<< The commission's discussions are said to be focused on an option presented by a panel of experts that the United States concede that the situation in Iraq cannot be stabilized and make plans for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops. >>>
Iraq "cannot be stabilized"? That strikes me as a ridiculous statement. One can legitimately ask whether Iraq can be stabilized at acceptable political, military or financial cost. But that would require some hard analysis of what the stakes are and what those costs may be. Notwithstanding the results of Tuesday's election, I think the American people are adult enough for such a discussion.
<<< [Director of National Intelligence John] Negroponte reportedly has come to agree with what is expected to be the most controversial of recommendations from the Baker group: that the United States approach Iran, and, in tandem with Israel, approach Syria, for help with Iraq, according to a source familiar with Negroponte's thinking. >>>
I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but this sounds like the kind of harebrained scheme that only a team of foreign policy "realists" could come up with. Why on God's green earth would Iran and Syria, individually or in tandem, help us to pacify Iraq? Both have been doing everything in their power to create disorder in Iraq for the last three years, presumably because they think it is in their interest to do so. How, exactly, do the "realists" expect to change those countries' assessments of their interests?
<<< While the Bush administration is not expected to drop its opposition to a nuclear Iran or even the threat of military action to prevent it, it could offer limited security guarantees that it would not attack Iran from Iraq and will prevent an armed anti-Iranian militia in Iraq from causing trouble. >>>
Huh? The whole premise of this deal is that we are leaving Iraq. So what is the value in promising not to attack Iran from Iraq, and what guarantees can we give regarding "anti-Iranian militias" once we're gone?
<<< Whether that would be enough to persuade Iran to be more helpful [!] in Iraq is not clear, analysts say. Iranian intelligence officials are said to be extremely worried about a precipitous U.S. pullout from Iraq, and resulting chaos, in the wake of Tuesday's elections. >>>
But wait! Didn't Iranian officials just say that the Democrats' success on Tuesday was a great victory for Iran? And why, exactly, would the Iranians be "extremely worried" that the U.S. might pull out? Isn't that exactly what the Iranian-backed Shia militias have been trying to bring about since 2004? I would guess that Iran's attitude toward our prospective withdrawal is summed up by the refrain we used to use in the schoolyard: Is that a threat, or a promise?
<<< An approach to Syria, the Bush administration's other main headache in the Middle East, might include the carrot of Israel reopening negotiations over the Golan Heights, Syrian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, or some other concession from Israel. >>>
Ah, yes: the "realist" approach to Middle Eastern policy always comes down to selling Israel down the river. But the stakes are so high in Iraq that the idea that "reopening negotiations" over the Golan Heights, or some other unidentified "concession," would be much of a "carrot" strikes me as delusional.
<<< Gates has sharply criticized the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war and has made clear that he would seek advice from moderate Republicans who have been largely frozen out of the White House, according to administration officials and Gates' close associates.
The administration officials said that Bush was aware of Gates' critique of current policy and understood that Gates planned to clear the "E Ring" of the Pentagon, where many of Rumsfeld's senior political appointees have plotted Iraq strategy.
*** Gates will be drawing on his experience and contacts from Bush's father's administration, including Baker and former security adviser Brent Scowcroft.
"Gates' world is Brent Scowcroft and Baker and a whole bunch of people who felt the door had been slammed in their face," one former official who has discussed Iraq at length with Gates said Thursday. "The door is about to reopen." >>>
Bad to worse. The problem with the "realists"--Baker, Scowcroft, Gates--is that their grip on reality seems to be tenuous. If Iraq really is a disaster, as they seem to think, why on earth would Iran and Syria help us out of it? Why would they change their policy of seeking to foment violence there? This report amplifies the "realists'" thinking somewhat:
<<< British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who plans to speak to the commission via video link on Tuesday, reportedly will urge the Bush administration to open talks with Syria and Iran and push for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a way of defusing Mideast tensions.
[Chief of Staff Josh] Bolten was asked whether the Bush administration was ready to make a new effort to get involved in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. "We'll see. The timing has to be right and it has to be something that both the Israelis and the Palestinians want," he said. >>>
As far as I can see, the "realists" haven't had a new idea in thirty years. What does Israel have to do with the fact that Shia and Sunni Muslims want to tear each other to pieces? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'll say it again: the idea that pressuring Israel to compromise its security will somehow, magically, solve the Iraqis' problems is delusional. Maybe Baker et al., know something I don't, but the idea that Iran and Syria will cooperate to bring peace to that region appears equally far-fetched.
So, under the Baker Commission's recommendations, what will become of the 12 million Iraqis who voted for freedom and for a normal life? President Bush has said more times than I can count, in speeches spanning the last four years, that all people want to be free, and that freedom is God's gift to all mankind. If he doesn't believe that, then what does he believe?
If the Iraqis are to be sold out, at least let them be sold out by the Democrats. No one expected anything better from them.
PAUL adds: If the reported contours of this deal (and President Bush's receptiveness to it) are correct, at least I now understand why the administration waited until after the election to embrace it. If it had changed course in this fashion earlier, no one (with the possible exception of Baker himself) would have voted for Republicans.
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