The Iraq Study Group co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker II has reached a consensus: it’s time to start a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops, but not to do it on a specific timetable, the New York Times reports:
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal, according to people familiar with the panel’s deliberations.
The report, unanimously approved by the 10-member panel, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, is to be delivered to President Bush next week. It is a compromise between distinct paths that the group has debated since March, avoiding a specific timetable, which has been opposed by Mr. Bush, but making it clear that the American troop commitment should not be open-ended. The recommendations of the group, formed at the request of members of Congress, are nonbinding.
The question now is whether it will become the blueprint for a new U.S. policy or effectively won’t have any teeth. MORE:
A person who participated in the commission’s debate said that unless the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki believed that Mr. Bush was under pressure to pull back troops in the near future, “there will be zero sense of urgency to reach the political settlement that needs to be reached.�
The report recommends that Mr. Bush make it clear that he intends to start the withdrawal relatively soon, and people familiar with the debate over the final language said the implicit message was that the process should begin sometime next year.
You can already tell that some on the right will dismiss the report as not allowing enough latitude to win. And some on the left will say it doesn’t set deadlines.
But it’s clear that the members of the commission aren’t endorsing a policy status quo: if next year is not marked by troop withdrawals, the administration is likely to face a “pile on” of bad news cycles where it’s under fire from some former commission members and Democrats, who want a speedier timetable. Plus, the already marked differences between members of Bush 41 Administration and Bush 43 Administration become even more marked and, most likely, public.
The report leaves unstated whether the 15 combat brigades that are the bulk of American fighting forces in Iraq would be brought home, or simply pulled back to bases in Iraq or in neighboring countries. (A brigade typically consists of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.) From those bases, they would still be responsible for protecting a substantial number of American troops who would remain in Iraq, including 70,000 or more American trainers, logistics experts and members of a rapid reaction force.
Meanwhile, the New York Sun reports that the commission may urge Israel to make concessions to nurture a regional solution to the Iraq conflict:
An expert adviser to the Baker-Hamilton commission expects the 10-person panel to recommend that the Bush administration pressure Israel to make concessions in a gambit to entice Syria and Iran to a regional conference on Iraq.
The assessment was shared in a confidential memorandum — obtained yesterday by The New York Sun — to expert advisers to the commission from a former CIA station chief for Saudi Arabia, Raymond Close. Mr. Close is a member of the expert group advising the commission and was a strong advocate throughout the panel’s deliberations for renewed American diplomacy with Iran and Syria. In the memo, Mr. Close shares his “personal predictions and expectations” for what the Iraq Study Group will recommend in its final report next month.
But is all this a lot of hype, or not?
Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey believe that all GWB intends to do is to “adjust the course” — not follow the advice to a large extent of the Baker Commission and certainly not cave in to demands from Congressional Democrats.
Is this the final conflict — between “the realists” and those who embraced neocon precepts? It seems as if differences between the two groups — those closely identified with the first President Bush and those closely identified with the second — are sharpening. For instance, former Bush II Secretary of State Colin Powell, cherished in the first Bush administration and disdained in the second, now calls the Iraq conflict a “civil war,” which is no-no terminology in the present Bush administration.
But that’s not the ONLY split. The Baker Commission will also likely come under fire from other quarters. Note the comments of former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski:
[Former] National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski issued a strong, preemptive criticism of the Baker Commission studying alternatives for Iraq. Brzezinski said that while the commission “will probably come out with some sound advice on dealing with the neighborhood,� it essentially “will offer some procrastination ideas for dealing with the crisis.�
Brzezinski added that the Iraq war “is a mistaken, absolutely historically wrong undertaking. The costs are prohibitive. If we get out sooner, there will be a messy follow-up after we leave. It will be messy, but will not be as messy as if we stay.�
So the questions become:
Will the Study Group’s advice become a blueprint for 2007? Or will it become one more blue-ribbon panel that becomes more of a footnote than a motor of policy change? Will its recommendations help frame the coming debate? Or will it be denounced by the left, right and essentially ignored by the administration? And what would that mean to policy, American influence — and the mood of the public as support for the war continues to dwindle?
UPDATE:
— Newsweek’s Michael Hirsch predicts the Baker report will “land with a thud” and in the end not mean much. He gives a host of reasons but here’s the big one:
The biggest reason why Baker-Hamilton will bust big time, however, is that while the diplomatic Baker cautiously forges consensus, the fast-moving events in Iraq are making him look as if he’s standing still….
……Iraq is not winnable or losable. All it is, in the best case, is manageable. What’s needed instead of careful consensus building in Washington is a Richard Holbrooke or a Henry Kissinger out in the field, a tough, no-nonsense negotiator who can grapple with the reality of the American failure in the region and simply seek the most honorable way out. Perhaps the best hope for this kind of adult solution now lies with Robert Gates, who served on the Baker-Hamilton group until he was named to replace Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of Defense. Gates, a longtime CIA analyst, is a true big-tent guy who has made a career out of sifting out nonsense.
For those who haven’t been paying attention, this has been the plan all along. I’ll bet they recommend that we embed more advisors with the Iraqi Security Forces, too. Oh, they’ll add some window dressing about more diplomacy with Iraq’s neighbors, but that was already coming down the pike, anyhow.
But hey, if it makes some people out there feel better to imagine these are all fresh, new ideas, then I’m all for it.
FOR SOME OTHER VIEWS ON THIS DEVELOPMENT READ: The Talking Dog, Wizbang,Israel Matzav, American Future
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.