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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: foundation who wrote (12237)	12/7/2006 9:24:57 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 218065

Stratfor is not impressed with ISG ... basically terming it unconditional surrender Geopolitical Diary: The Underwhelming Findings of the Iraq Study Group The Iraq Study Group (ISG), headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, formally released its findings on Wednesday. Outlining a whopping 79 recommendations -- including resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict and persuading Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria -- the report's recommendations are far-reaching. It essentially suggests resolving every U.S. foreign policy blunder in the region, all the compounded consequences of these mistakes and the centuries-old dispute over the holy land. This, suffice to say, is underwhelming. The report was rife with political compromises intended for domestic consumption. It provided a comprehensive list of the failures of the Iraq war -- failures that are both profound and well-known. This panel of elder statesmen known for back-channel dealings and solving intractable geopolitical problems is capable of much more than that. What the group set out to do -- and what Washington desperately needs it to do -- was to devise a cogent, attainable solution and make specific strategic recommendations. We therefore suspect that a separate, classified report -- the real report -- was placed on the president's desk some time ago. The ISG has no real power. These recommendations will be implemented by the White House, operational commanders and, to some extent, Congress. They can be implemented enthusiastically, grudgingly or not at all. However, specific pieces of the report could hint at coming changes in Iraq. The report explicitly recommends that the United States leave Iran's nuclear program on the table at the U.N. Security Council. The implication of this is that the United States should deal with Iran politically now in order to solve problems in Iraq -- which must begin to be resolved in a matter of months -- and leave the less-pressing and difficult nuclear issue for later. Iran's nuclear program began as a useful bargaining chip for negotiating over Iraq. As the situation in Baghdad has worsened and Iran's influence in the region has expanded, the nuclear issue has matured into a diplomatic monster. Now it seems destined to languish in the Security Council, which is exactly what Iran wants. Iran's negotiating options continue to improve. For the United States, Tehran's stake and influence in Iraq's future are decisive; Iraq can no longer be resolved without Iran. Diplomacy is no longer an option -- it is a necessity. The United States knows this and has already started down this path. Another ISG recommendation calls for a shift in military priorities. This is no surprise, but the report lays out the specifics of how these shifts might manifest themselves. The training, equipping, advising and supporting of Iraqi units must take priority if the United States is ever to withdraw from the country. Although there is no mention of permanent basing ambitions, the operations discussed -- training, embedding with and supporting Iraqi forces, rapid-reaction, special operations, intelligence, search and rescue and force protection -- all have substantial basing and logistics requirements. Whether these require permanence is something that could come up in future negotiations, but it has no real bearing on the operations of the next few years. Again, the White House and operational commanders will decide how best to implement whichever recommendations they see fit to follow. Overall, the report calls for a United States with a much more limited combat exposure -- but even the ISG-recommended missions will continue to require logistics trains stretching back to Kuwait. As the death of 10 U.S. servicemen on Wednesday reminds us, the United States is still very much at war. That will not change. Nor will a strong U.S. presence in the region. Whether on Iraqi soil or elsewhere, the United States has strategic interests in there that cannot go untended -- not the least of which is containing Iran and physically blocking it from the Saudi oil fields. Yet another recommendation says all funds for Iraq in fiscal year 2008 should be included in the president's annual budget request. Thus far, the White House has used emergency supplemental requests to bypass most congressional budgetary oversight. If it is implemented, this recommendation will lead to a much more detailed debate of how money is spent in Iraq, and would give the new Democratic Congress a measure of control over operations there. Perhaps most important of all, the ISG report symbolizes a plan -- even if it isn't one. Unlike in the months before the congressional elections, during which U.S. policy in Iraq languished as the world anticipated the ISG's findings, Washington now appears to have in its hands a bipartisan guide to purposeful action in Iraq. The public perception that such a plan exists is absolutely essential. It symbolizes an answer. However, if there is no classified report, this symbolism will quickly crumble in the face of reality.