US Diplomacy Makes Progress in Iraq

This journal has maintained that the Bush administration has bungled the Iraq situation so badly as to make Mr. Bush the leading candidate for the title of "worst president in American history." So when something goes right, one has an obligation to the truth to point it out. Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III has been to Baghdad and has talked with leaders of the Sunni community. That doesn’t seem like much, but force hasn’t worked, so maybe negotiations can.

Like other governments, America’s has a long standing policy of not negotiating with terrorists, but like other governments, it does. It even trades arms for hostages under extreme right-wing presidents. So, sitting down with leaders of a group whose members on occasion blow up US Marines may stick in a few craws, but it could wind up saving more Marines in future. Besides, one of the Sunnis with whom he talked is Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zobaie.

Above all, Mr. Baker is not a Bushevik. He knew the president when George “LBJ” Bush was just another drunk rich kid wasting his life away. He served as Big George’s Secretary of State, having been President Reagan’s Chief of Staff and later Secretary of the Treasury. He was also on Mr. Reagan’s National Security Council, and he ran Big George’s 1980 presidential campaign.

Mr. Baker now heads the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group set up by Congress in March 2006. As Washington Monthly, a fairly anti-Bush publication, put it, the Iraq Study Group is “trying to devise a fresh set of policies to help the president chart a new course in -- or, perhaps, to get the hell out of – Iraq.” As the Deputy Prime Minister said after their talks, “James Baker was the engineer of US foreign policy for many years. He has been sent by George Bush [the Lesser] personally to find out the reality of what is happening in Iraq.”

That speaks volumes. The trusted family advisor is now on the scene to get some facts. The neo-con nonsense will, one expects, finally get challenged in the only place anyone still believes it, the Oval Office. James Baker is, at heart, a hard-assed Texas conservative, but one who has been cutting deals with people America may or may not like longer than Karl Rove has been alive. It’s a sad commentary on the state of the administration when Big George’s pals have to step in, but they’ve been bailing W out all his life. One hopes Mr. Baker can do it again.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

Home