PHK
Would someone please explain why the Bush administration launched its own comprehensive internal review(s) of U.S. policy towards Iraq about a month before the Congressionally-mandated bipartisan Iraq Study Group headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton is due to present its findings? Or why W is likely to make mincemeat of the yet to be released ISG report because its recommendations, we're told, call for gradual US troop withdrawals? Seems to me W must have rejected that suggestion out of hand even before reading the report, his response was so quick. Or am I reading the tea leaves wrong?
Given the Great Decider’s latest pronouncement, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the purpose of those internal administration reviews by the JCS and others is not to compliment or reinforce the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group whose members approached the task methodically and with some of the best American expert advice available. Instead, the administration generated internal assessments – due the middle of December – will in all likelihood and with deliberate intention work at cross purposes. They will, I’ll bet, be shaped to fit the needs of W’s “stay the course” sink-or-swim policy that has been the bedrock of this administration’s approach to the Middle East all along.
I can’t help but think that the finger prints of Cheney and his neocon cabal will likely be all over the administration response to the ISG in their never ending chess game with the foreign policy realists - regardless of party affiliation. It’s unfortunate, but despite Rumsfeld’s push from grace, Cheney's neocon crew appears to continue to retain far too much influence on White House foreign policy decision-making despite what should be the national implications of the “throw the rascals out” results of the November elections.
Someone might want to remind them that if this were a parliamentary system, they would already be toast.
Could this explain why Philip Zelikow, the voice of pragmatism at the State Department, decided to return to academia and see his family once in a while: why go down with the sinking ship particularly if you’re advice is ignored anyway?
Passing the buck?
But could the result of this White House maneuvering be to paralyze the US decision-making process so that nothing can happen before W has been evicted from the White House in January 2009? If so why? Who benefits? Certainly neither Americans nor Iraqis. But I don’t think it makes W, his administration or his historical legacy look good either.
If it’s so our erstwhile president can declare that he “stayed the course” in his “global war on terror” despite the fact that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was never a breeding ground for Al Qaeda terrorists – unless you want to count the small group in the eastern mountains of Kurdistan, an area so remote and inaccessible that even the Kurds didn’t control it, then it seems to me what we’re looking at is a “pass-the-buck” pyrrhic victory.
Makes one wonder why anyone of either party would seek the presidency in 2008.
Unless, of course, the current downward spiral in Iraq engulfs even the Green Zone in flames between now and January 2009, and we witness the Iraq version of our ignominious helicopter evacuations from Vietnam and Cambodia in spring 1975.
It’s clear the sectarian violence in Iraq grows daily and is well beyond Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s ability to control - if he ever had that power. It also seems to me it’s a waste of breath to try to get him to curb the violence between the various warring sectarian and tribal militias; it’s been obvious for some time that al-Maliki himself depends on certain militias for his own political longevity.
Meanwhile, I foresee no good long term U.S. military options – if there ever were any. So that's why the ISG's recommendation makes sense. More troops, the same number of troops, or fewer troops – I’ve long held the opinion that the issue of numbers or kinds of US “boots on the ground” in Iraq is immaterial and the sooner they leave the better. Why?
At least two reasons: 1) Iraq’s feuding factions have long been primarily a political problem kept in check by internal containment - not one that could be solved by a western military invasion force whose members do not speak the language or understand the culture; and 2) The U.S. military is not trained or equipped to fight a guerrilla war – particularly one as complex and multifaceted as this one - so far away from home.
V stands for victory: but what does it mean?
CKR and I discussed earlier this week the lack of clarity behind George W. Bush’s insistence upon “victory” in Iraq. What exactly does he mean?
At this point, I’m beginning to think it means keeping the US military in control of the Green Zone and the Baghdad airport until the end of W’s presidency then foisting the problem of what can be done with what’s left of Iraq off on his successor – that is if the civil war now in progress doesn’t spiral even more out of control and the US become entirely overwhelmed in the whirlwinds in Iraq’s desert before then. Then W will actually have to make some hard decisions and fast. But is he up to it?
We already know that the ISG recommends working with, not snubbing, the neighbors the most affected by Iraq’s civil war. In addition to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Kuwait - discussion partners more pleasing to W, it also means engaging the Turks more fully and “horror of horrors” talking to Iran and Syria – no matter how repugnant that may be to this administration. Further if Seymour Hersh has it right, US covert action in Iran ala Central America in the 1980s, will also need to cease. (Thanks PLS for the link). This time it's even worse since apparently this is a joint operation with the Israelis: just the kind of hair-brained scheme that NSC Deputy Director Elliot Abrams would support. Or maybe even think up.
Please: Attempting to destabilize regimes from which we need cooperation is not helpful. So will W and his minders stonewall on the talk-to-all-the neighbors recommendation too?
I had hoped that the Iraq Study Group report would be insightful enough and provide sufficient bipartisan cover to allow the Bush administration a face-saving way out via quiet diplomacy rather than to continue with the counterproductive use of force so favored by the neocons. I suspect that the report will meet both my criteria, but we'll see when it's presented to the president on December 6.
Come 2007, we will need the new Democratic Congress to hold W accountable for his abuses of civil and human rights. We also need that same legislative branch to inject realism into US foreign policy throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. It seems to me the Iraq Study Group recommendations could be the right place to start when the new Congress meets for the first time in January. The big question, however, is: will this intransigent, short-sighted administration cooperate - and do the right thing for a change even if just for its own selfish interests?