Beyond Baker-Hamilton - One Approach to a Last Try at Stability in Iraq

A collapse of the Iraqi state would be catastrophic -- for the people of Iraq, for the Middle East and for America's strategic interests. We need a new political and military approach to head off this impending disaster -- one crafted with bipartisan congressional support. But Baker-Hamilton isn't it.

Our objective should be a large-scale U.S. military withdrawal within the next 36 months, leaving in place an Iraqi government in a stable and mostly peaceful country that does not threaten its six neighboring states and does not intend to possess weapons of mass destruction.

The courage and skill of the U.S. armed forces have been awe-inspiring. Our soldiers, Marines and Special Operations...

Shiite and Sunni Arabs overwhelmingly anticipate and endorse a U.S. strategic withdrawal and defeat.

We could immediately and totally withdraw. In less than six months, our 150,000 troops could fight their way along strategic withdrawal corridors back to the sea and the safety provided by the Navy.

That is a self-serving domestic political concept that would put us at risk of a national military humiliation.

All of this may not work. We have very few options left. In my judgment, taking down the Saddam Hussein regime was a huge gift to the Iraqi people. Done right, it might have left the region and the United States safer for years to come. But the American people have withdrawn their support for the war, although they remain intensely committed to and protective of our armed forces. We have run out of time. Our troops and their families will remain bitter for a generation if we abandon the Iraqis, just as another generation did after we abandoned the South Vietnamese for whom Americans had fought and died. We owe them and our own national interest this one last effort.

http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2426

Bush Likes Hybrid of Study Group Suggestions
by Scott Ott

(2006-12-08) — Rather than accept all of the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations as a package, White House sources said today that President George Bush leans toward a hybrid version of the panel’s major suggestions, which include pulling back all combat brigades over the next 15 months, and starting direct talks with Iran and Syria.

Under the Bush hybrid plan, most combat brigades in Iraq would pull back to the neighboring countries on the east and west to conduct “high-level, targeted diplomacy with Iran and Syria on a variety of fronts of mutual concern.”

“After 9/11,” the source said, “the president stood on the rubble of the World Trade Center and said the people who knocked down these buildings would hear from us. Then he told the American people that those who harbor and help terrorists would be treated as terrorists. Now, thanks to the Iraq Study Group he thinks it’s time to strike up a conversation aimed at achieving lasting peace in the region, and greater security at home.”

“Nobody’s better at making our point clear than the U.S. military,” the anonymous source added, “and for convenience sake, our troops are willing to conduct those talks right downtown in Tehran and Damascus. We’ve got squadrons standing by ready to conduct a little shuttle diplomacy.”

We are in a very difficult position created by a micromanaged Rumsfeld war team that has been incompetent, arrogant and in denial. The departing defense secretary, in a recent farewell Pentagon town hall meeting, criticized the alleged distortions of the U.S. media, saying that they chose to report a few bombs going off in Baghdad rather than the peaceful scene he witnessed from his helicopter flying over the city. This was a perfect, and incredible, continuation of Donald Rumsfeld's willful blindness in his approach to the war. From the safety of his helicopter, he apparently could not hear the nearly constant rattle of small-arms fire, did not know of the hundreds of Marines and soldiers being killed or wounded each month, or see the chaos, murder and desperation of daily life for Iraqi families.

Harsh words but I think they needed to be said and Barry McCaffrey is qualified to say them. It's good that President Bush is loyal to his followers but something should have been done about this situation long ago. What happened to accountability? Why did he wait until after an election thumping to go on his "listening tour". Canning the Defense Secretary the day after the midterm loss of Congress makes it very clear that Bush is in Crisis response mode and not in command mode

If the war had been going as well as Rumsfeld has been saying all along then we wouldn't need so many troops there. I don't understand why no generals have been reassigned either. Lincoln had to keep looking until he found the right ones to win the Civil War.

Finally, we have to design and empower a regional diplomatic peace dialogue in which the Iraqis can take the lead, engaging their regional neighbors as well as their own alienated and fractured internal population.

Nobody likes the Iranians or Syrians but for Iraq they are a fact of life and they need to hold talks with them. Negotiations are what you do with enemies not friend.

But the American people have withdrawn their support for the war, although they remain intensely committed to and protective of our armed forces.

Broad and solid support from the public is as much of a munition as the shells for the tanks. Some people enjoy making fun of the opposition but the cold hard fact is we need the support of enough Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, and any other parties to keep a governing majority that supports something as serious as a war. The Administration has not done this and we're all going to pay the price.

Let me add a note of caution regarding a deceptive and unwise option that springs from the work of the Iraq Study Group. We must not entertain the shallow, partisan notion of rapidly withdrawing most organized Marine and Army fighting units by early 2008 and substituting for them a much larger number of U.S. advisers -- a 400 percent increase -- as a way to avoid a difficult debate for both parties in the New Hampshire primaries.

Spot on. The ISG delayed issuing their report until after the midterm elections to avoid affecting them and they seem to be looking for a withdraw of troops before the next election. Since when did elections become the cornerstone of military strategy?

Our political leaders have been letting the troops and the country down with their poor leadership. Bush's inability to adjust his course has brought about a full revolt of the American people. Changes could have been made earlier and he could have maintained the confidence of the American people. Now anything he does will be in response to this intense and public pressure and not as the considered actions of a responsible leader.

A very well reasoned and articulate comment.

Only a few weeks ago such comments as these would have stirred a swarm of critics who now content themselves with railing against the report itself.

Your concluding observation about the dilemma President Bush now finds himself in, - "Now anything he does will be in response to this intense and public pressure and not as the considered actions of a responsible leader" - is quite apposite and it reveals the strategic weakness and danger which now confronts the country. Before the election I posted that if the Republicans and Bush were repudiated, Bush could find himself in as weakened the state is Gerald Ford was at the end of Vietnam. We have not arrived there yet but we are on course to compound our disasters in Iraq.

That is why I sadly agree that Rumsfeld had to go, and I too have complained about the timing. A president must be able to be president even if it does cost his whole cabinet, so Rumsfeld had to go regardless of the degree of blame which history ultimately assigns to him.

The real fulcrum of the war against an Islamic Jihad waged with terrorism is not Iraq but Iran. It must be the over arching foreign objective of the United States that Iran not get the bomb for it will destabilize the region, upset the balance of power, encourage the terrorists, encourage Russia and China, discourage our allies and shatter what's left of the Pax Americana, not to mention the existential risks it poses to the life of the Republic.

A very well reasoned and articulate comment.

Thanks

Only a few weeks ago such comments as these would have stirred a swarm of critics who now content themselves with railing against the report itself.

I was a bit surprised at the lack of flames this morning. I think it's a good sign that honest criticism is tolerated even if not embraced by all.

The real fulcrum of the war against an Islamic Jihad waged with terrorism is not Iraq but Iran.

There's no doubt that Iran with nuclear weapons would be a disaster for all. I'm not sure Pakistan is not an impending disaster a well. I doubt we'd be happy with a democratically elected Pakistani government with control of their nuclear weapons. The fact that we will probably do everything we can to keep the Pakistani dictator in power gives lie to our noble push for democracy everywhere.

A democratically elected government in Iran would probably be friendly to the West and so one possibility is to step up aid to Iranian resistance and let them do the job. The Mullahs have really overstayed their welcome there.

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