Iraq Study Group Says “Change the Course”

The Iraq Study Group is a behind-the-scenes body of 10 members led by James A. Baker III. It is preparing a report for early next year that will recommend that the US administration abandon its “stay the course” approach to Iraq because it isn’t working. Since Mr. Baker is the fixer from the previous George Bush’s administration as well as a Reagan crony, there’s a chance the ISG might get a hearing after the mid-term elections. The pity is the public debate will be over by then, although the leaks to the Los Angeles Times over the week-end and The New York Sun before that are welcome.

The ISG is a bipartisan group which includes former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-ID.), who co-chaired of the September 11 commission, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, former congressman and Bill Clinton’s one-time chief of staff Leon E. Panetta, former CIA Director Robert M. Gates. Instead of getting a bunch of neoconservative faux intellectuals into a room to wish reality a way, the ISG is calling on what may be called America’s elder statesman class. Experience does count, after all.

On the table are two proposals, according to Doyle McManus in today’s LA Times. One is called “Stability First” and the other is “Redeploy and Contain.” According to Mr. McManus, the former “calls for continuing to try to stabilize Baghdad, boosting efforts to entice insurgents into politics, and bringing Iran and Syria into plans to end the fighting.” This is likely to be the more palatable to the Busheviks because it looks less like admitting they were wrong about almost everything, including the way forward.

“Redeploy and Contain,” according to Mr. McManus, “goes further. It calls for a gradual, phased withdrawal of American troops to bases outside Iraq where they would be available for strikes against terrorist organizations anywhere in the region.” In the end, it is likely that this is the end result for the US because the Iranian and Syrian participation in “Stability First” may be at the price of US withdrawal.

He also noted, “The experts also prepared an option called 'Stay the Course, Redefine the Mission,' and an alternative urging a quick U.S. withdrawal, but the panel appeared less interested in those plans, participants said.”

Mr. Baker’s bottom line is “Our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated alternatives, the ones that are out there in the political debate of ‘stay the course’ and ‘cut and run’.” That’s why the ISG won’t report this side of the election; the White House has framed the campaign as a choice between those two. Any suggestion that there is a third or fourth way vitiates the “with us or agin’ us” nonsense from the administration.

© 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.

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