James Baker's Iraq Study Group is a Fraud

Matthew Yglesias notes that James Baker's Iraq Study Group is a fraud, intended not to bring Bush back to reality but to provide more support for his fantasies:

Matthew Yglesias / proudly eponymous since 2002: The Commission: Via Jim Henley, a Guardian story shows once again that Democrats can't count on James Baker to solve the Iraq issue: "Mr Bush's refusal to give ground, coming in the teeth of growing calls in the US and Britain for a radical rethink or a swift exit, is having a decisive impact on the policy review being conducted by the Iraq Study Group chaired by Bush family loyalist James Baker, the sources said."

The Commission, in other words, not only won't change Bush's mind, but is changing its own mind to suit Bush's blinkered worldview. The idea that the enforcer sent down to Florida to help finesse the will of the electorate away in 2000 was going to be a big help to the Democratic Party always seemed like something to be skeptical about.

It's worse than that, Matt. The idea that the enforcer sent down to Florida to help finesse the will of the electorate away in 2000 was going to be a big help to the American people and the national interest always seemed like something to be skeptical about. Jim Baker regards his key role as backing up George W. Bush's fantasies rather than bringing him to reality.

More from the Manchester Guardian:

US plans last big push in Iraq | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited: "You've got to remember, whatever the Democrats say, it's Bush still calling the shots. He believes it's a matter of political will. That's what [Henry] Kissinger told him. And he's going to stick with it," a former senior administration official said. "He [Bush] is in a state of denial about Iraq. Nobody else is any more. But he is. But he knows he's got less than a year, maybe six months, to make it work. If it fails, I expect the withdrawal process to begin next fall."

The "last push" strategy is also intended to give Mr Bush and the Republicans "political time and space" to recover from their election drubbing and prepare for the 2008 presidential campaign, the official said. "The Iraq Study Group buys time for the president to have one last go. If the Democrats are smart, they'll play along, and I think they will. But forget about bipartisanship. It's all about who's going to be in best shape to win the White House.

The official added: "Bush has said 'no' to withdrawal, so what else do you have? The Baker report will be a set of ideas, more realistic than in the past, that can be used as political tools. What they're going to say is: lower the goals, forget about the democracy crap, put more resources in, do it."

What else do you have? Well, the Baker Commission could fulfill its mandate and tell the Congress the most important thing that could be done to improve the U.S.'s chances in Iraq, the Middle East, and around the world. If George W. Bush and Richard Cheney were to be removed from office, the situation would look so much brighter.

---

Here's Jim Henley

Jim Henley: Once More Into the Breach!: The "breach" being the President's ass, his head being what's going in "once more." Per the Guardian:

President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make "a last big push" to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration's internal deliberations.

Mr Bush's refusal to give ground, coming in the teeth of growing calls in the US and Britain for a radical rethink or a swift exit, is having a decisive impact on the policy review being conducted by the Iraq Study Group chaired by Bush family loyalist James Baker, the sources said.

Keep in mind that the ISG works for the White House. George Bush is its sole real customer, certainly not any pious abstraction like "the American people." The Repubs on the panel are going to bow.... Theoretically the Dems might not, but you have to consider the official Democratic Party's proven record of cowardice, befuddlement and dithering on the topic of Iraq. I figure at least some committee members will feel duty-bound to sign on to a "bipartisan"report that is, since it%u2019s what the President wants, in truth as partisan as reports get.

"The extent to which that [regional cooperation] will include talking to Iran and Syria is still up for debate," said Patrick Cronin, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Translation: the President, and especially the Vice President, don't want to talk to Iran or Syria. At most they are willing to issue their preexisting and empty ultimata face to face rather than through the media.

Point three focuses on reviving the national reconciliation process between Shia, Sunni and other ethnic and religious parties. According to the sources, creating a credible political framework will be portrayed as crucial in persuading Iraqis and neighbouring countries alike that Iraq can become a fully functional state.

To the certain dismay of US neo-cons, initial post-invasion ideas about imposing fully-fledged western democratic standards will be set aside. And the report is expected to warn that de facto tripartite partition within a loose federal system, as advocated by Democratic senator Joe Biden and others would lead not to peaceful power-sharing but a large-scale humanitarian crisis.

bipartisan plan to install a junta or dictator. Iraq the Model! of covering your domestic ass politically. Which is important, because who wants everyone to see your ass when you've got a great big old head jammed up there?

Now, a field guide: The proposal clearly amounts to nothing more than avoiding the admission of defeat until it's time for the Bush Administration to leave office. No matter what Poppy and the family fixit man privately feel about the wisdom of starting the Iraq War or the idiocy of its prosecution, they will do everything to bail out their ward. He is their priority, not any quaint notion of the national interest. You've got to make the tough choices...

Here is General Abizaid saying that the "one big push" the Bushies are pushing for is simply stupid:

Informed Comment: Abizaid Opposes Withdrawal, Increase in Troop Levels: Here's how I interpret the contretemps Wednesday between Gen. John Abizaid and Republican Senator John McCain. McCain wants to send another division, about 20,000 US troops, to Iraq.

Abizaid told him:

1. that would produce only a temporary improvement since the US doesn't have a spare division to send to Iraq for the long term and
2. Increased US troop levels are counterproductive because they remove the incentive for the Iraqi government and army to get their acts together and fight the guerrillas and militias effectively and
3. If Iraq is going to come back to better days, it will have to be primarily with Iraqi troops and
4. Iraqi troops are not now doing the job, so if more US troops are sent to Iraq it should be as trainers and units available for joint patrols, not as independent combat troops....

Juan Cole comments:

[M]ost of Abizaid's arguments could also be deployed for a phased withdrawal, which he opposed.... What if it isn't just an increased US presence that would remove the incentive for Iraqi leaders to compromise and/or fight effectively? What if present troop levels do that? I say, let's take out a division ASAP (20,000 men) and make it clear that we're never putting a division back in to replace it. Then let the Iraqis try to fill the resulting vacuum themselves. Give them armored vehicles, tanks, helicopter gunships, and a nice wood-panelled room where they can negotiate with one another.... Such a phased withdrawal is not guaranteed to succeed. It has a better chance of succeeding than the current policy.

Comments

[Monte Davis]

"The 'last push' strategy is also intended to give Mr Bush and the Republicans "political time and space..."

Is that anything like the "decent interval" Kissinger was buying us in 1969-1972?

[Barkley Rosser]

I have been saying ever since it first showed up that too many people were putting too many hopes in this commission. However, it is far from obvious to me that it is tailoring anything to Bush that it was not already doing when it started. The one idea that I do keep seeing that Baker is supposedly pushing is that there should be some effort to get assistance from Iran and Syria, particularly the latter. I do not see Baker backing off that one, even if Bush ignores it in the end, and his appointment of his own parallel study suggests that he does not like all that is going to come out of the ISG and so wants to have his own group to recommend that he do just exactly what he wants to do.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Monte: a couple of my friends died for Kissinger's decent interval - what a waste.

The Bush Brain is incapable of understanding the complexities of the Middle East, and just when we should be getting tough with Iran our Army is exhausted and wasted.

[John Emerson]

If Bush himself used the phrase "last push" he was tipping his hand. He couldn't think that it would be the last push because it would succeed. Not even Bush is deluded enough to think that 20,000 troops would make a difference. So it's the "last push" because he knows he'll pull out. (He just wants to get a few hudred GIs killed first.)

What he was saying is something like, "We'll buy a little time by pretending to still be trying, and then a year or so down the road we'll come up with some gimmick to make us look good before we pull out".)

The guy is profoundly evil. I wish there were a way to tell Christians that they too can be evil, and that they too will be judged. Too many Christians think of faith and redemption as a "get out of hell free" card which allows them to get away with evil.

No, I'm not being funny and I'm not kidding.

[Emma Anne]

I agree with Save the Rustbelt and John Emerson. Bush is wasting some more American and Iraqi lives flailing for a while more. Reason? No good reason.

[John Emerson]

"The one idea that I do keep seeing that Baker is supposedly pushing is that there should be some effort to get assistance from Iran and Syria, particularly the latter.

Iran: Axis of Evil, we bomb them next.
Syria: Axis of Not-so-Evil, on the regime-change list.

I've got it! Let's also ask **Cuba**, **Venezuela**, and **North Korea** to help it. Yeah! That's the ticket!!

You really just want to cry. And 35% of Americans and 90% of the media are playing along.

[Hedley Lamarr]

Baker's group appear to be a bunch of enablers. Leon Panetta, for example,is not one to ask who will be the last man to die for a mistake.

[Ginger Yellow]

Write out 100 times: The Manchester Guardian ceased to be the Manchester Guardian in 1959.

[Ginger Yellow]

More clear indications from the Guardian piece that the Baker plan will be anything but a return to reality:

"Although the panel's work is not complete, its recommendations are expected to be built around a four-point "victory strategy" developed by Pentagon officials advising the group. The strategy, along with other related proposals, is being circulated in draft form and has been discussed in separate closed sessions with Mr Baker and the vice-president Dick Cheney, an Iraq war hawk."

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/world/middleeast/16hearing.html?ex=1321333200&en=540b88735a372b29&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

November 16, 2006

With Politics as Subtext, Senators Clash on Iraq
By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON — For much of the first postelection hearing on the war in Iraq on Wednesday, the Republican side of the table was largely empty. But the room was still crowded — with competing agendas.

There were three contenders for president, including the Democratic and the Republican titans for 2008 and the one from Indiana who is hoping to cast himself as the Democrats' compromise candidate.

There was the self-described "Independent Democrat — capital I, capital D," who is at risk of bolting and taking his party's new narrow majority with him. (Was that red tie a hint?) And there were the two parties, trying to bolster their positions on the war after an election that each side seemed to interpret in wildly different ways.

In contrast to the Republicans, who arrived late and left early (if they arrived at all), all but one of the Democrats arrived early and stayed late, filling up their side of the Armed Services Committee table quickly, eager to assert their new strength. As the hearing began, Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, flashed a thumbs-up to the incoming Democratic chairman, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan.

But no sooner had Mr. Levin outlined his case for a phased pullout of troops beginning in four to six months than the new Independent Democratic hero of the hawkish wing, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, began acting the role of cross-examiner, leading Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American military commander in the Middle East, to say that such a withdrawal would increase violence and instability.

"I take it by your answer that you profoundly disagree?" Mr. Lieberman asked. With the Democrats, he meant. "We have a window of opportunity and, really, responsibility now, after the election," he said, "to find a bipartisan consensus for being supportive of the efforts of our troops and our diplomats there to achieve success." ...

[anne]

There have been 45 American soldiers killed this month, but I am not sure there is consciousness enough or political pressure enough for withdrawal, to make withdrawal an insistent call that the President will hear. Press the General properly and the General is thinking only of victory, and that means occupying Iraq indefinitely. But, countering the calls for victory of Joe Lieberman and John McCain in the Senate will be difficult.

John Murtha will still push for withdrawal in the House, but Steny Hoyer shows no such leadership and Hoyer is the leader while Murtha has astinishingly been rudely treated by all too many who should understand how critical the Iraq occupation is.

A year ago, John Murtha called for America to leave Iraq. Murtha never stopped calling, but few politcal leaders followed Murtha last year and still too few political leaders are following now.

[anne]

I have been asked several times how I would simply leave Iraq. The question is asked to show that I have no sense of how we could leave Iraq immediately, and to show that the idea of leaving Iraq as such is ridiculous.

I have always thought the question of how we could leave Iraq, ridiculous. The President would simply order commanders to quickly draw a plan for leaving. There would be matters of troop protection and logistics, as how to move tanks from Iraq, and as the matters were settled the withdrawal would begin. We could leave in a little more time then we entered for war, for we have more to move now.

Of course, the idea of leaving always seems impossible to many, to too many. Well, I say we just begin to leave and leave as quickly as we logistically and safely can, which would be quick, for we are equipped for such quick moves. Offer technical assistance to Iraqis, but leave.

There are 45 American soldiers killed this month. Enough, leave immediately. Killed soldiers can never justify more being killed. So leave.

[Eli Rabett]

Write out 100 times:

There is no good solution to the US involvement in Iraq.

There is no bad solution.

There are only awful choices to be made and lest you think that only Iraqis will die, I increasingly am of Warren Buffet's opinion that within fifty years an American city will be destroyed by a nuclear weapon. I only hope it is one in which there are many Bushs, to partially recompense for how unsafe George II has made us.

[ilsm]

Abizaid was giving a pass by the senate committee yesterday.

Bad, bad on the committee.

He said our leaving would make Iraq more unstable.

The follow up should have been 'what about your command's actions so far have contrbuted to stability and how the good stuff (there is none) should be expanded'.

But from what I see and hear he was let off with the ideologically safe position to expend more lives with no process to get any worth out of the adventure.

This bodes poorly for the commisssion and the next senate.

Weak, fretful dems need a spine.

[dale]

God, Rusty. Don't say things like that. There are weak minds our there.

[John Emerson]

Lieberman shanked them just like he always does. If the Democrats win solid control of the Senate in 2008, I hope they strip the fucking weasel of his seniority and committee memberships, and assign him to the Laundry, Tar, and Horsehide Subcommittee to give him a chance to redeem himself.

[John Emerson]

Go piss up a rope, observer. Your snark is not up to our quality standards.

[Matt]

Bush will never,volontarily, withdraw from Iraw. It would be an admission of failure, and he, by definition, does not fail. About six months or a year from now, Congressional Republicans, not wanting to lose 80 house seats, will force submission.

[bigTom]

The one way to get Bush to withdraw is to give him a good way to blame the defeat on the Democrats. He (or his party) doesn't want his legacy to be "started an unneccesary war -and lost it". So he's hoping the Demos will do something, so that he can make leaving seem to be caused by the Demos. Then he can lose it, and begin a nasty blame-shifting game. Lacking that his only other option is to somehow distract the people/media with something else so no-one notices the loss. Both seem about as unachievable as winning.

[wjd123]

It's official Bush policy as announced on the Larry King Show a few years ago that the Iraqi government is a sovereign government and in the event they would ask us to leave we will leave.

Well, sovereignty cuts both ways. According to Gen. Abizaid's testimony this week the Iraqi government doesn't want us sending in more troops because it believes more troops wound undermines its authority.

So according Bush's doctrine of who has the final say, Bush can't send in more troops because as Gen. Abizaid has revealed the Iraqi government doesn't want them.

If there has been a change in Bush's Larry King doctrine, shouldn't the Commander-in-Chief inform the American public.

[anne]

The problem is quite simple in a terrifying way. We are in a disastrous occupation of Iraq, disastrous for America and for Iraq, but President Bush is determined to "succeed" in Iraq and will keep us there indefinitely. There are many prominant Republicans and some Democrats, and Joe Lieberman, who support the President.

Then, the problem for those who understand the tragedy and lunacy of the occupation of Iraq becomes continually urging the leaving of Iraq. The problem becomes understanding that there will be no support, none, for leaving Iraq from conservative Republicans like James Baker.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Bush.html

November 17, 2006

Bush Draws Iraq Lesson From Vietnam

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- President Bush, on his first visit to a country where America lost a two-decade-long fight against communism, said Friday the lesson from the Vietnam War is that it will take time for freedom to trump hatred in Iraq.

Embracing a former enemy that remains communist but is allowing capitalism to surge, Bush opened a four-day stay here that was fueling an already raging debate over his policy in Iraq....

''My first reaction is history has a long march and societies change and relationships can constantly be altered to the good,'' Bush said after seeing signs of both poverty and the commerce produced by Asia's fastest-growing economy....

The president said there was much to be learned from the divisive Vietnam War -- the longest conflict in U.S. history -- as his administration contemplates new strategies for the increasingly difficult Iraq war, now in its fourth year. Like Vietnam, the United States faces a determined insurgency in Iraq; both wars have demonstrated the limits of U.S. power and drained support for American presidents.

''It's just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful -- and that is an ideology of freedom -- to overcome an ideology of hate,'' Bush said after having lunch at his lakeside hotel with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, one of America's strongest allies in Iraq, Vietnam and other conflicts.

''We'll succeed,'' Bush added, ''unless we quit.''...

[Alex]

Jim Baker - duped by his own chicanery. Clearly, option 8 (Teh Last Big Push) was included to promote option 4 (phased withdrawal) through the well-known debating device of giving the impression that your chosen argument is the "balanced", "moderate" choice (note that people asked to grade anything out of 5 tend to give 3s far more often that is statistically likely). But George is too thick to be fooled like that. (http://yorkshire-ranter.blogspot.com/2006/11/option-8.html /whore)

BTW, the Guardian will always in truth be the Manchester Guardian..

[wjd123]

Assume that Gen. Abizaid is correct about what the Iraqi government believes: that more troops will undermine their authority. Assume that the Iraqi government is right in their assessment. Assume that Bush will strong arm them into accepting 20,000 more American troops for a final push. What do you get? Military policy undermining political policy.

The final solution would tip toward a military one not a political one. An additional twenty thousand American troops is unlikely to produce a final military solution. More troops would be necessary. At this point we are on the road to adopting the McCain policy of beat them militarily and rule them by force.

[Dave]

If Bush sees this year as the "Tet Offensive", then by a very loose analogy (it will take time for Freedom to Triumph) he might be expected to push "Operation Frequent Wind" out into the far future -- around, say, 2013 or so.

(might today's leaner, faster, army manage it more quickly?)

[Barkley Rosser]

anne,

Murtha has been appointed Chair of the Defense appropriations subcommittee that controls funding for the Iraq war. This may be much more important than being Majority Leader, where Murth's questionable ethical record would have been an ongoing embarrassment for the Dems. Hoyer will not go out of his way to defend Bush on Iraq. He is no hawk.

[anne]

Only a year ago, no matter how tragic the occupation of Iraq was, there was no member of the House of Representatives or Senate who would stand for leaving Iraq, and leaving immediately. Those who opposed the war, were silent. The tragedy was hidden or masked to those who did not make a point of looking. Who really understand why, but possibly it was because of what was learned walking the rooms of Veterans Hospital often enough, John Murtha asked for press attention and called for leaving Iraq immediately.

Almost before John Murtha could finish speaking, there was a denounciation of the floor of the House of Representatives, "only cowards cut and run." Here was a singular act of courage, here was an anti-war stance that was never turned from by John Murtha in months to come.

Here was political heroism that will be remembered.

[anne]

Of course, John Murtha's call and courage will be remembered because the occupation of Iraq has been a disaster and continues to be so. The Veterans Administration anticipates 400,000 soldiers will be variously disabled by service in Iraq and Afghanistan, the vast number in service in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died in the wake of war and occupation. A physical, psychological, moral and material profound tragedy.

The President is completely determined to keep our soldiers in Iraq indefinitely. We need John Murtha and more such heroic voices, for we are in the midst of tragedy.

[dale]

I have no freaking idea what lessons Bush thinks he is learning from his Viet Nam trip. It scares me to speculate. Those quotes of his are so shallow and ambiguous.

Maybe he's being reinforced that we have a long way to go till we kill 2 million in Iraq as we did in Viet Nam. Maybe he's finding comfort in the fact that only 3000 US troops have been killed, as opposed to over 50,000 - giving him historical space and legitimation to continue on and on...

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/18/opinion/l18iraq.html

The Relentless Tragedy Called Iraq

To the Editor:

"Insurgent Bombs Directed at G.I.'s Increase in Iraq":

I can't help but compare your headline with President Bush's bizarre remarks on Wednesday: "There's some good people in our country who believe we should cut and run. They're not bad people when they say that, they're decent people":

"President Joins in G.O.P. Attacks on Democrats About Terrorism".

You better believe I'm a decent person — and a decent mother whose 19-year-old United States Marine son is being deployed to Iraq next month to face a deadly, targeted anti-American insurgency that has nothing to do with the "war on terror."

Why should my son, or any other mother's son, be sacrificed in a mounting civil war because it's not politically advantageous for the Bush administration to admit that its Iraq policy has failed?

My decency is suffused with bitterness.

Donna J. Anton
Hayle, England, Aug. 17, 2006

[DILBERT DOGBERT]

My cousins husband served in the United States Airforce Infantry in the battle of the bulge.
Watch for it.
I read a story, I think in the NYT, about Airforce officers taking Counterterrorism Tactics training. At first I thought it was just a fun and games course to keep bored officers busy then the thought hit that just maybe those extra boots were going to come from the other services. When the bottom of the barrel is reached you tear out the bottom and start using the dirt under it. I have skin in this game with two children, one serving in the Navy and one in the Airforce. I am worried.
Good Luck All

[andres]

''We'll succeed,'' Bush added, ''unless we quit.''...

(Please pardon me while I vent...)

God, no wonder I turn off the radio every time I hear his voice on NPR. So many of his sound bites come out of elementary school recess (from the wrong type of schoolboys) or Phys Ed class (from PE teachers who have no clue as to how to motivate students), that I would have to suppress a definite desire to punch him in the face if he said these things in my presence. The type of mentality that says there can be any sort of "success" when fighting a war or other violent conflict(when the only thing that can be hoped for is to avoid a worse disaster) is and always has been one of the worst enemies of the human species. At least that other cretin Teddy Roosevelt spoke more eloquently when he expressed the same schoolyard "fighting is good" spirit.

(End of vent)

More objectively, I think both mature and immature Republicans from Baker to Feith have realized that the Iraq venture is _now_ a disaster of such epic proportions that it will result in their political scalping if they withdraw or even if they start to implement any sort of withdrawal timetable. The Baker Commission's objective is thus to grasp at any straw that will stall the push for a timetable, the hope that somehow a future Iraq will be even slightly better.

And if even that hope vanishes, they're hoping that the lack of a phased withdrawal plan, and spin that we're "winning" in any sort of sense, will lead to a Republican president in 2009 who will issue pardons for any resulting indictments.

[matt]

This thing was a sham from the start. The first indication was the personnel.

James Baker? War profiteer; why would he want to turn off the spigot.

Lee Hamilton? Treasonous Democrat who enabled George the First to escape impeachment over Iran-Contra and then went on with Ben-Veniste to give a faux bipartisan cachet to the 911 commission the chairman of which made a deal to get his son into the senate which the Jersey electorate refused to honor.

Robert Gates? Perjurer extraordinaire from, again, Iran-Contra.

When will the people in this country wake up? We are being driven to ruin by a bipartisan cabal of thieves and miscreants.

If anyone actually believes that the Democrats are going to get any credibility with the American electorate by playing the bipartisan game with the GOP, they are naive. Rove et al. see compromise as weakness. The Dems have to throw down the gauntlet and I personally would like to see them start by initiating impeachment investigations into the two most recent perjurers who found their way onto the Supreme Court.

Screw Myers and Haynes and Keisler. Let's go after the guys who are already on the bench to show the GOP that we aren't going to play nice and that misspeaking is just spin for lying through your teeth under oath.

That can be followed by a resounding "Go fuck yourself" delivered to Cheney from the floor of the Senate by the entire Democratic membership of the Judiciary Committee.

[derek]

Does any one know who is on the Iraq Study Group and what its partisan compostion is? I know that Baker, Meese, O'Connor are on it [3 Republicans] and Hamilton [1 Democrat]. Any one know more?