The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired
by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, issued its long-awaited report
last week and ignited a media firestorm the engulfed the American
president and British prime minister during their joint press
conference at the White House on Friday.
The report of the 10 member bi-partisan
group, also know as the Baker-Hamilton Commission, was made
more timely by the result of the mid-term election last month,
which many experts took to be a referendum on the Iraq war.
A central recommendation of the
report is negotiating entering into a dialogue with Iran and
Syria, both nations have an interest in seeing the U.S. bogged
down in Iraq. What is negotiation going to achieve? We're
at war with terrorists. Negotiation is a sign of weakness. Terrorists have no interest in negotiation and will not relent
until they achieve their objective -- a world ruled by Islamic
law. As I recall, the "Jimmy Carter School of Diplomacy"
didn't work too well in the late '70s, and the president is
likely to reject it outright.
Conservatives were critical of
the report mainly because it elicited a long string of questions
from the White House press corps of the "Say Uncle" variety,
but to the group's credit other points of the report were well-founded,
such as the litany of difficulties the United States faces on
the ground in Iraq.
A great deal hinges on whether
the 3 factions -- Kurd, Sunni, and Shia -- can unite as a nation.
Saddam held the country together through the use and threat
of violence. Odds are that the country will not unite
and reconcile as a nation. Three powerful groups using
violence to control their destiny, does not augur well for the
future of democracy in Iraq. A lot also depends on whether
the revenue from the country's vast oil resources can be distributed
among the population in order to quell the violence.
The United States is both a stabilizing
and destabilizing force in the Middle East. The United
States can't win in Iraq; only Iraq can win.
Republicans see Iraq as a central
front on the war on terror. Our enemies view it the same
way. Shouldn't the Democrats understand the gravity of
the situation.
We can reduce our troop presence over time,
but we should maintain combat troops in the country as long
as is required not to cede the field to Al Qaeda.
Senator John McCain is advocating
for an increase in the force. This may be a strategy that
is three years too late.
