Posted on 10/12/2006 6:31:44 AM PDT by HawaiianGecko
WASHINGTON — 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
Don't go wobbly, George!
Stay the course!
I hope Bush remembers how good Baker's advice was for his father.
Let us not forget the selective leaking of PARTS of the April, 2006 NIE.
Baker and a New York rag can be trusted!?? In your world, maybe...
Anyone who believes that Baker allowed a report like this to be leaked, raise your hands.
And this:
"The United States should aim for stability particularly in Baghdad and political accommodation in Iraq rather than victory."
Seems like some kind of parsing going on. Stability would indicate victory IMO.
That is all well and good but the States surrounding Iraq do NOT want us to pull out.
Why oh why did Bush use James Baker? He is very old school Repub. and probably still sees Dems as our "friends" across the aisle. He is so not with it, and I do not remember his serving George H.W. Bush well.
vaudine
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1717368/posts
James Baker's Second Act?--counsel of appeasement may return
FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | October 11, 2006 | Jacob Laksin
Posted on 10/11/2006 7:27:50 AM CDT by SJackson
A counsel of appeasement from the first Bush administration may return to undermine the foreign policy of the second.
It’s not everyday a sitting president implements his opponents' foreign policy, but that may yet occur in the second Bush term.
One of the more incendiary revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book, State of Denial, concerns the efforts of erstwhile White House Chief of Staff Andy Card to evict Donald Rumsfeld from the Pentagon in favor of former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. On two different occasions, Woodward reports, Card appealed to the president to have Rumsfeld fired.
In the event, the president stood by his secretary of defense. But worrying signs suggest that Baker – a leading exponent of the realpolitik view, thoroughly discredited in the post-9/11 world, that the price of international stability is the appeasement of Middle Eastern dictators – may have won the larger battle to determine the course of American foreign policy.
excerpt
***
Baker Panel Preparing Iraq Alternatives
Posted by kellynla
On News/Activism 10/09/2006 8:47:49 PM CDT · 19 replies · 377+ views
The Washington Times ^ | Oct 9, 2006 | BARRY SCHWEID
WASHINGTON (AP) -- James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state with a long-standing reputation of service to Republican presidents and the Bush family in particular, has joined a list of prominent Republicans raising questions about the administration's Iraq policy. Co-chairman of a bipartisan commission studying what to do next in the wartorn country, Baker said his panel is preparing to recommend that President Bush consider options other than his "stay-the-course" strategy in Iraq. "Our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated alternatives, the ones that are out there in the political debate, of stay the course...
Baker Sees Iraq Panel Departing From Bush Strategy
Posted by bnelson44
On News/Activism 10/08/2006 7:11:30 PM CDT · 41 replies · 877+ views
NYT ^ | 10/8/06
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 — James A. Baker III , the Republican co-chairman of a bipartisan commission assessing Iraq strategy for President Bush, said today that he expected the group to depart from Mr. Bush’s call to “stay the course.” In an interview on the ABC News program “This Week,” Mr. Baker said, “I think it’s fair to say our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated alternatives, the ones that are out there in the political debate, of ‘stay the course’ and ‘cut and run.’ ” Mr. Baker, who served Mr. Bush’s father as secretary of state and...
Baker panel may recommend federal Iraq
Posted by Perdogg
On News/Activism 10/08/2006 9:08:38 AM CDT · 19 replies · 448+ views
UPI ^ | 10.07.06
A commission chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker may recommend a federal Iraq divided among the country's three major groups. "The Kurds already effectively have their own area," a source close to the group told the Times of London. "The federalization of Iraq is going to take place one way or another. The challenge for the Iraqis is how to work that through." Baker's panel was set up by Congress with President George W. Bush's approval in an effort to break out of what appears to be a dead end in Iraq, with the United States unable...
Prez Commission Headed By *James Baker* Advises Cutting Iraq in Three
Posted by quesney
On News/Activism 10/08/2006 1:41:52 AM CDT · 20 replies · 409+ views
Times of London ^ | Sarah Baxter
AN independent commission set up by Congress with the approval of President George W Bush may recommend carving up Iraq into three highly autonomous regions, according to well informed sources. The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker, the former US secretary of state, is preparing to report after next month’s congressional elections amid signs that sectarian violence and attacks on coalition forces are spiralling out of control. The conflict is claiming the lives of 100 civilians a day and bombings have reached record levels. The Baker commission has grown increasingly interested in the idea of splitting the Shi’ite, Sunni...
Baker surfaces as key adviser to Bush on Iraq
Posted by slowhand520
On News/Activism 09/13/2006 11:33:58 AM CDT · 79 replies · 1,447+ views
Insight mag ^
Baker surfaces as key adviser to Bush on Iraq James Baker (Agence France-Presse) President Bush has acceded to his father's urging and has made former Secretary of State James Baker a leading adviser on Iraq. Administration sources said Mr. Baker, head of the congressionally mandated Iraq Study Group, has been discussing with the president recommendations on an exit strategy that could begin after the November elections. They said Mr. Baker's approach to Iraq differs sharply from that of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The sources said Mr. Baker has maintained an extremely low profile and slips in and out of Baghdad...
Bush turns to (James) Baker for ideas on Iraq
Posted by churchillbuff
On News/Activism 05/02/2006 3:51:22 PM CDT · 46 replies · 923+ views
taipei times ^ | Ap 24 06 | NYTimes/Taipei Times
In the late 1960s, anguished former US president Lyndon Johnson sought advice from a respected elder statesman on the Vietnam quagmire. In part because of the counsel of former secretary of state Dean Acheson, a onetime hawk turned skeptic on the war, Johnson shifted course in 1968, ... The analogy is far from perfect, but Republicans and Democrats are seeing parallels between the quiet designation last month of former secretary of state James Baker III to head up a congressionally mandated effort to generate new ideas on Iraq and the role of Acheson, who had served under president Harry Truman....
Baker, Bush Family Fixer, Will Advise President on Iraq
Posted by RWR8189
On News/Activism 04/24/2006 9:15:28 PM CDT · 32 replies · 900+ views
New York Times ^ | April 24, 2006 | STEVEN R. WEISMAN
WASHINGTON, April 23 — In the late 1960's, an anguished President Lyndon B. Johnson sought advice from a respected elder statesman on the Vietnam quagmire. In part because of the private counsel of former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, a onetime hawk turned skeptic on the war, Johnson shifted course in 1968, halting the bombing of North Vietnam and announcing that he would not run for re-election. The analogy is far from perfect, but Republicans and Democrats are seeing parallels between the quiet designation last month of former Secretary of State James A. Baker III to head up a Congressionally...
Leak it now. Watch the Dems overreact (they always do). Then the full report comes out & says something entirely different. Watch the Dems collapse -- just in time for the elections.
Baker and a New York rag can be trusted!?? In your world, maybe...
Unfortunately, I do believe that W trusts Baker.
W's affection for his father's friends is the thing I like least about him. I admire personal loyalty, but in the job he has to be able to separate feelings of friendship from what's best for the nation.
This is a signal that I hate to contemplate, that is, that 41 is pulling 43's strings, that 43 is just a puppet of his old man. Baker always turns up whenever there is a Bush crisis. I hope this doesn't turn out to be the decline of W and his administration through meddling by his gutless cutandrun dad.
 |
| I truly believe that Baker and the commission are going to recommend something along the lines of what are stated here, my question is why the leaks before the election? Baker himself is indicating a change and I have a very hard time believing he is attempting to hurt the GOP. There must be a silver lining to this that I'm missing. |
Baker is one of those people who acquired the earnest habits of restraint that made sense during the Cold War but which constitute only appeasement in the current conditions.
He (and many others) also appear to me to be thinking more highly of their personal 'professional' interests (in business and reputation among the international diplomatic and legal communities, etc.) than the national interest.
That's how an elite betrays it's country: when old habits that match their personal interests are no longer appropriate, they are more likely to pick the path of least resistance that benefits them personally and enhances their reputation amongst their equally wrong-headed peers than they are to bite the bullet, break with conventional 'wisdom', and toss aside some personal and financial interests in doing so.
Even Iran has said the US should not get out. Whatever the rhetoric used in public ALL states around Iraq realize that their governments will be in al Queda's cross hairs should the US leave. Apparently the only one's not able to see this is the Treason Media/Party of Treason.
Sometimes that went way too far in the Cold War. It was that attitude which caused people in the White House to repeatedly remove "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" from President Reagan's Berlin Wall speech. Fortunately it was put in one more time than it was taken out.
But bad faith creeps in due to cowardice (above all, fear of offending one's peer group) and concupiscence. Look at all the US diplomats paid-off by the House of Saud via a nice retirement sinecure at the 'foundations' they set-up. Every one of those diplomats represents a rollodex of influence in the highest circles of American government that's bought and paid for.
I can't think of any other point in American history when the nation has simultaneously possessed such a worthless political class and such a set of vicious enemies. It doesn't bode well for the future.
They remind me of the Roman generals and Senators who vied for control of the imperial palace in the 3rd and 4th centuries while barbarians marched unmolested or ineffectively opposed across the borders.
They simply could not conceive that the Roman order could be destroyed, so what mattered most was winning political control of that order, and using that power to reward their friends, other politicians and generals, their political supporters and their families with the spoils, no matter what the cost politically. Sound familiar?
What will be left of our liberties and our prosperity if a few nukes are smuggled into the country in 5 to 10 years (as Frank Galluci surmises)? Not much.
Meanwhile, our internal politics becomes a mixture of blood sport, soap opera and farce.
This isn't exactly new - W has been listening to his dad's friends since the very beginning.
Colin Powell, anyone?
As I understand, Card denies this, and seems to think it might stem from his upkeep of a list of candidates for positions.
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