Jim “Cut and Run” Baker faces the music

Baker’s Panel Rules Out Iraq Victory

A commission formed to assess the Iraq war and recommend a new course has ruled out the prospect of victory for America, according to draft policy options shared with The New York Sun by commission officials.

Currently, the 10-member commission — headed by a secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker — is considering two option papers, “Stability First” and “Redeploy and Contain,” both of which rule out any prospect of making Iraq a stable democracy in the near term.

More telling, however, is the ruling out of two options last month. One advocated minor fixes to the current war plan but kept intact the long-term vision of democracy in Iraq with regular elections. The second proposed that coalition forces focus their attacks only on Al Qaeda and not the wider insurgency.

Instead, the commission is headed toward presenting President Bush with two clear policy choices that contradict his rhetoric of establishing democracy in Iraq. The more palatable of the two choices for the White House, “Stability First,” argues that the military should focus on stabilizing Baghdad while the American Embassy should work toward political accommodation with insurgents. The goal of nurturing a democracy in Iraq is dropped.

The option papers, which sources inside the commission have stressed are still being amended and revised as the panel wraps up its work, give a clearer picture of what Mr. Baker meant in recent interviews when he called for a course adjustment.

They also shed light on what is at stake in the coming 2 1/2 months for the Iraqi government. The “Redeploy and Contain” option calls for the phased withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq, though the working groups have yet to say when and where those troops will go. The document, read over the telephone to the Sun, says America should “make clear to allies and others that U.S. redeployment does not reduce determination to attack terrorists wherever they are.” It also says America’s top priority should be minimizing American casualties in Iraq.

Wow. There it is. Of course, any major decision like this, or more properly, any leaked report of a pending major decision, put out in mid-October, is automatically suspect as merely political. So, the skeptical take is that this is just intended to re-assure some segment of the faithful that Bush will indeed come up with new and fresh thinking on Iraq.

But, taken on its face, this would seem to be it. Jim Baker has just flicked off the lights; he says it isn’t going to happen. The denialists are going to have a hard time with this. When the Bush Family consigliare says that going to the mattresses isn’t going to work, that’s hard to spin. What a disaster this has been.

Comments

  1. RPG wrote:

    Iraq diddnt quite meet up to Baker’s expectations

    Posted 12 Oct 2006 at 5:31 pm

  2. Grim wrote:

    You’re right that the leak has to be presumed political.

    That said, let’s talk about it anyway. For the sake of discussion, we’ll assume the leak is valid (in return for which, we recognize that the discussion is theoretical — the conclusions reached aren’t valid unless the leak proves, in time, to have been correct).

    If those are the options on the table, which one is better?

    “Stability First” seems to me to be the right way forward. Indeed, it adopts what I think was always the right way forward — establish some form of stable government, in which people vote. Use the tribal structure and the religious structure to prop up this government. Pay off the leaders of the various factions.

    So it takes fifty years for the liberal factors to really begin to change Iraqi society in a viral way — what’s that to us? We’ve got an ally in the region, and (like Taiwan or Japan or Germany, all of which were not all that democratic in the beginning) the liberal virus will spread on its own.

    In other words, it is more or less what I wanted to do to start with. Far from “flicking off the lights,” it’s a model I can support.

    “Redeploy and Contain,” on the other hand, is catastrophic. It assumes the collapse of Iraq into warring factions, with all that means for chaos in the Middle East.

    That, however, is not the biggest problem for me. The biggest problem is that adopting that mode will suggest a different, less moral basic strategy for the future of US warfighting.

    John Kerry’s military affairs advisor, Gen. Tony McPeak, advised a form of warfighting that was based on this model: collapse the state, then go away. John Derbyshire, who is a principled conservative, also endorses this purely punitive form of warfare.

    There are times when it might be appropriate — surely North Korea, for example, in which the infrastructure is so poor and the challenges so great that there are no other military options (and strategic advantages to sticking China with the bill for putting things together again). Nevertheless, I think it’s not the right way for America as a rule.

    We benefit from tying current enemies into the network of liberal states. We can survive by reducing our enemies to barbarism and poverty, because it prevents them from attacking us (even asymmetrically, mostly — the seriously damaging forms of asymmetrical warfare require a fairly advanced education, and the ability to move inconspicuously in the West).

    That isn’t the kind of people we want to be, though. And it’s not the form of warfare that really benefits us as a nation in the long run. We have more to gain from viral liberalism than from chaos.

    Posted 12 Oct 2006 at 6:43 pm

  3. commissar wrote:

    Grim,

    Good comment.

    By “flicking off the lights,” I was alluding to my previous snark, “Will the last denialist turn off the lights?”

    Posted 12 Oct 2006 at 8:42 pm

  4. Grim wrote:

    Fair enough. In the event that the Baker report does indeed boil down as described by the piece, then, will you join me in supporting the “Stability First” option, and opposing the alternative?

    Posted 13 Oct 2006 at 3:31 pm

  5. commissar wrote:

    Grim,

    I don’t know. I’m tempted to dodge with “that decision is above my pay grade.” But honestly, right now, I’m saying “Shred the docs, load the choppers, and don’t look back.” Maybe that’s an emotional over-reaction.

    Let’s try to push this forward a bit. Iraq is breaking up; any significant reduction or redeployment of U.S. forces will permit that to happen meven more quickly. Presumably, Kurdistan would welcome U.S. security assistance, especially with respect to Turkey. The Shiite area (probably the 9 southern governates in the current federalist proposal) might also be comfortable with some U.S. presence. In the Sunni areas, I don’t see it. I cannot imagine how Baghdad and the soon-to-be theoretical central government fit into this arrangement.

    So, whatever the Baker-Hamilton team proposes, if that results in a smaller U.S. force in central Iraq, then we get to separate areas sooner than later. Also, there’s is no requirement in the universe for a neat, official, resolution. For example, the theoretical central government, limited in real control to the Green Zone, the Baghdad Airport, and some highways, might persist indefinitely, with various real power structures in the three distinct areas. And there’s no requirement that those would be unitary either.

    In sum, any reduction of real U.S. military power, even if called “Stability First,” leads to an earlier break-up of Iraq. So, I am not sure that the two choices proposed make much difference.

    Posted 13 Oct 2006 at 4:55 pm

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