A bombshell with a long fuse

The Iraq Study Group report may be DOA. But it shows the Washington establishment is finally confronting reality in the Middle East.

By Gary Kamiya

Read more: Middle East, James Baker, Gary Kamiya, Opinion, Iraq Study Group

Dec. 12, 2006 | The Iraq Study Group's report is two things at once. On the one hand, it is a political intervention, a last-minute attempt to salvage a situation that may already have slipped out of control. On the other, it is a call for the United States to radically change its policies in the Middle East -- not just now, but in the future as well. As an intervention, it is DOA. But as a guide to America's dealings with the Middle East after Bush exits the stage, it could be a crystal ball.

The report's caution in some respects -- notably, its failure to call for a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal -- has prevented some observers from grasping its larger import. The report is not just a decisive rejection of Bush's Iraq adventure but an explicit call for the United States to break with its entire approach to the Middle East, in particular its pro-Israel tilt and its refusal to deal with Iran and Syria. Perhaps even more significant is the fact that the authors are a gang of plodding, blue-chip, ultra-mainstream centrists. It is too early to say that a paradigm shift in the Washington establishment's thinking about the Middle East is really taking place, but the ISG report strongly suggests that it is.

This moment is rich with historical irony. Under normal circumstances, the chances would be nil that a bipartisan panel made up of such wild radicals as Sandra Day O'Connor, Vernon Jordan and Alan Simpson would bluntly assert that "the United States will not be able to achieve its goals in the Middle East unless the United States deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict," or insist that we begin talking with states we deem supporters of terrorism. Holding Israel's feet to the fire, which is what "dealing directly" with the conflict means, is politically radioactive in Washington -- or it was. But Bush's Iraq debacle has exacerbated the contradictions and weaknesses of our Mideast policy and raised the stakes for the United States so high that it has become impossible for neutral observers to simply mouth the party line. Just as the thought of the gallows concentrates the mind, so a war that has cost almost 3,000 American lives and $2 billion a week, weakened America's standing in the world, and strengthened our terrorist enemies, has forced the Washington power elite to acknowledge reality. And the reality is that our old approach to the Middle East -- ignoring the festering conflict in Palestine, trying to strong-arm rival states into submission, and counting on democracy to magically transform the region -- has utterly failed. To increase the chances that we can salvage something from Iraq, and to achieve our other regional goals, we must broker a peace deal in Palestine, approach Iran and Syria realistically, stop seeing every problem as requiring a military solution, and accept that democracy is not a panacea.

Unfortunately, all of these suggestions are anathema to Bush. Any faint hopes that he might be desperate or reasonable enough to take the group's recommendations seriously were immediately dashed. The Decider made it clear last week that he has no intention of Undeciding anything. He explicitly rejected the group's two key recommendations: to begin withdrawing combat brigades over the next 18 months, and to begin negotiations with Iran and Syria. And there is even less chance that he will make any bold moves on the Israeli-Palestinian front. Bush may accept some of the report's 79 recommendations just to save face, but picking and choosing won't work. As the group's co-chair, James Baker, has correctly pointed out, the report is not a "fruit salad"; its strategy must be wholly adopted for it to have any chance at success.

In fact, the greatest single failing of the ISG report was that it did not make its cautious military proposals -- to withdraw U.S. combat forces from Iraq by 2008, to push harder to train Iraqi troops -- contingent on the acceptance of its diplomatic ones. As many analysts have pointed out, the problem with training Iraqi troops is that Iraqi troops are more loyal to their sects than to the in-name-only government, and so training them might simply result in their being able to shoot at us more accurately in the future. For this reason and others, the ISG's plan would still be a Hail Mary pass even if its diplomatic recommendations were followed; if they are not, it has virtually no chance of success. By saying, "If you don't engage in diplomacy, you should withdraw U.S. troops immediately," the Baker group would have greatly increased the pressure on Bush to abandon his failed stay-the-course approach. And such a link would have given Democrats in Congress invaluable bipartisan support to demand a timetable for troop withdrawal -- something they don't feel they have enough political cover to propose now.

Of course, Bush would almost certainly have rejected this proposal anyway. As his entire disastrous presidency has shown, Bush is incapable of admitting he is wrong. With all the certainty of a simpleton whose brain has been taken over by One Big Idea, Bush has been convinced ever since 9/11 that history and God have chosen him to defeat an enemy of near-satanic menace. (Oddly, this Manichaean attitude is echoed by his also highly devout enemies.) In his mind, the current crisis is the Battle of Britain, and he is Winston Churchill, rallying the British people to their finest hour. Unfortunately, Bush has chosen the wrong World War II analogy. Iraq is not the Battle of Britain, it is Stalingrad. And Bush is not heroically standing fast like Churchill; he is stubbornly clinging to a doomed position, like Hitler. (If he insists on playing Churchill, there's a more applicable battle: Dunkirk.)

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