So, the Baker commission report is out and, well, no surprises.
The group — officially called Iraq Study Group — lays out what can at best be described as a conservative approach that might slowly extricate us from a foreign policy disaster of historic proportions.
The basic gist is this, (from the online story in The New York Times):
The executive summary of the report declares that its two main recommendations are “for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly.”
But it warned that “the most important questions about Iraq’s future are now the responsibility of the Iraqis,” and said Mr. Bush must make clear to the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that the American commitment of large numbers of troops is not “open ended.”
American forces would remain after 2008, in units embedded with or otherwise supporting Iraqi troops, and in rapid reaction and special operations forces, the panel said.
It also recommended, according to the Times:
¶ Immediately launching a diplomatic offensive “to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region,” including “all of Iraq’s neighbors.”
¶ An effort to engage Iran and Syria “constructively.” It said Iran needed to stem the flow of arms and training to Iraq and respect its territorial integrity, while Syria should act to stem the flow of terrorists, insurgents and money in and out of Iraq.
¶ The Iraqi government should increase the number and quality of its army brigades.
¶ The United States should significantly increase the number of military personnel imbedded with or supporting Iraqi units.
¶ The United States could move most combat troops out of Iraq by early 2008, leaving a smaller force to focus on rapid-reaction, training, equipping, advising, and search-and-rescue operations.
Nothing Earth-shattering. We leave — slowly, incrementally, but not really. We swallow our pride and bring in the regional powers, nations we haven’t talked with in a while and who we don’t like all that much to help stabilize the situation. We threaten al-Maliki, but not really, telling him our commitment of troops is not open-ended but then promise to leave some troops there.
My response is based on the news reports, of course, but I just don’t see why Washington allowed itself to be so invested in this process. But then, as Matt Taibbi points out in this wonderfully cynical piece from Rolling Stone (via Alternet), the panel was a product of the kind of political expediency that characterizes mainstream Washington. Written before the final product was released, the essay neatly sums up the process that resulted in the report we not have in front of us (well, sort of — we have the summary, :
Baker-Hamilton was a classic whore-panel in every sense. None were Middle East experts. None had logged serious time in Iraq, before or after the invasion. All of them had influential friends on both sides of the aisle all over Washington, parties in the future they wanted to keep getting invites to, ambitions yet to be realized. You could assign Jim Baker, Lee Hamilton, Sandra Day O’Connor and Vernon Jordan to take on virtually any problem and feel very confident that between the four of them, they would find a way to avoid the ugly heart of any serious political dilemma. If the missiles were on the way, and nuclear Armageddon was just seconds off, those four fossils would find a way to issue a recommendation whose headline talking points would be something like “heightened caution,” dialogue with Sweden, and a 14% increase in future funding for the Air Force.
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! Because the really thorny questions are the specifics: when do we leave, and, more importantly, what do we offer Iran and Syria in return for their cooperation, what horrifying inevitable humiliation will we be prepared to suffer at their hands, and what form will talks with those gloating countries take?
Baker-Hamilton blew off those questions, and it’s no wonder, because no one in Washington wants to deal with them. The Republicans don’t want to agree to a withdrawal timetable because it’s an admission of defeat and policy failure, while the Democrats don’t want to be the first to call for a withdrawal because they’re afraid of being pilloried in the next election season for a lack of toughness. Both sides are afraid of being responsible for a civil war bloodbath if the U.S. troops pull out, and neither side wants to be the first to suggest taking the humiliating step of inviting Syria or Iran to the negotiating table with anything like equal status.
Baker-Hamilton takes all of this into account, offering no concrete or controversial suggestions that would bind either party to unpopular action in the near future. In essence, all Baker-Hamilton accomplished was a very vague admission that Bush’s Iraq adventure is somehow irrevocably ****ed and that we have to get our troops out of that country as soon as possible, a conclusion that was obvious to the entire world two long years ago. But even this pathetically timid intellectual assertion was deemed too controversial to risk unveiling before the 2006 midterm elections, and it’s obvious now that both parties have decided to wait until 2008 to deal with the more important questions of “when” and “how.”
The end result, as he says, is an over-hyped report — the headline on the Times online story, “Panel Backs Overhaul of Iraq Policy,” is pretty typical, as is the “Iraq Panel Calls Conditions ‘Grave and Deteriorating,'” a “no duh” headline from The Washington Post.
At the same time, the report is apparently serving as a political Rhorshack, with everyone using it to bolster their own arguments. Read these comments from the Times:
The White House spokesman, Tony Snow, speaking to reporters after the president’s briefing, emphasized that the report’s 79 recommendations do not include either a firm timetable or a call for an immediate withdrawal.
“There is nothing in here about pulling back militarily,” he said.
***
Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who called earlier this year for a firm timetable for withdrawing American forces in Iraq, said in a televised interview this morning that he thought the group’s recommendations amounted to a timetable in everything but name.
“I think they’re about as close as you can come without getting into a direct confrontation with the president,” he said on CNN.
He said that he hoped Mr. Bush will “embrace” the findings.
So there you have it — a whole lot of noise, “Sound and fury,” as they say, “signifying nothing.”
We should have seen this coming.
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Hank Kalet 