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MUST READ - James Baker Works to Establish Direct Diplomatic USA - Iran Ties Former US Secretary of State Baker Attempts to Bypass Bush White House on Iran Defense & Foreign Affairs Analysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS. Former US Secretary of State James Baker, who co-chaired the recent US Iraq Study Group — the main recommendations of which were rejected by the George W. Bush Administration — is working indirectly and behind the scenes to bring about direct diplomatic ties between the US and Iran. This is in defiance of Bush White House policy which essentially has said...

Recent visits by Syrian President Bashar Assad to U.S.-allied Yemen and the United Arab Emirates are prompting speculation that Syria is seeking to leave the Iranian orbit and pursue closer ties with the West. Such a move would fulfill a major recommendation of the Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, which suggested it might be possible through diplomacy to pry Syria away from Iran.

Former Secretary of State James Baker was involved in a cover-up of illegal trading by his law firm with the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, according to a former contractor who did work for Mr. Baker’s firm. Mr. Baker used non-Americans to help acquire funds from Iraq in violation of the United Nations embargo and U.S. law, the former contractor said. Nir Gouaz, an Israeli security veteran, said that in 1999 Mr. Baker's leading deputy at the law firm of Baker Botts ordered him to destroy all documents that detailed how he obtained from Iraq more than $250 million...

As the Iraq Study Group issued its long-awaited report on the war, declaring that the United States should not dispatch more troops, Sen. John McCain reacted with his long-held and contrary view: It will take more boots on the ground, or the nation faces "sooner or later, our defeat in Iraq." Then the Arizona Republican discreetly flew to San Diego, where the next day, Dec. 8, he sat under a hot sun to watch a skinny 18-year-old in military-issue glasses graduate from boot camp and become a Marine. His son Jimmy. John McCain's public certainty about Iraq masks a more...

Anbar Province and the Iraq Study Group Report Iraqi Politicians and Tribal Sheihks are concerned about the implications of the Iraq Study Group report The release of the Iraq Study Group report, a 79 point plan to address Iraq, created by a blue ribbon panel lead by former Secretary of State James Baker and Representative Lee Hamilton, has implications far beyond domestic U.S. politics. I've been asked numerous times how this report has effected the U.S. troops serving in Iraq. The answer is very little. Most shrug their shoulders at the news reports, and haven't had time to digest the...

How did we go from winning the war in Iraq to losing overnight? Was this decided by the same committee that changed "Peking" to "Beijing"? These word changes are a fortiori evidence that liberals are part of a conspiracy. On what date did "horrible" and "actress" vanish from the English language to be replaced with "horrific" and "actor"? Who decided that? (Meanwhile, I'm still writing "Puff Daddy" in my nightly dream journal when everybody else has started calling him "Diddy.") When did "B.C." (before Christ) and "A.D." (anno Domini, "in the year of the Lord") get replaced with "BCE" (before...

Our source must remain covert, but we have gained access to a series of e-mails between James A. Baker III and Lee A. Hamilton, co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group. (Actually, the ISG designates them as "co-chairs," but even a cursory look shows neither of them to be furniture.) The messages' content sheds an interesting light on the ISG's 79 recommendations. We submit these messages below, without comment: Dear Jim: I've looked at the draft of the ISG recommendations. Do you think anybody will notice there aren't really 79, and that a bunch of them repeat or extend other recommendations?...

During the 2004 election, it was painfully apparent that the Democratic presidential candidate had no credible response when President Bush and the Republicans asked him the ultimate question about the war in Iraq: “What exactly would you do?” Unable to advocate immediate withdrawal, unwilling to suggest a specific timetable, John Kerry and his party were stuck, able only to grouse about the failure to find WMDs or to criticize inadequate troop levels. But now the Left has been given a built-in response to the question of what should be done. All they now have to say is: “Implement the Baker...

The Big Lie About the Middle East,Tell James Baker: Arab nations don't care about the Palestinians No sensible person is against peacemaking in the Holy Land. Applause and hopefulness would seem the reasonable reaction to the Iraq Study Group's recommendation that the Bush Administration "act boldly" and "as soon as possible" to resolve the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. But as a front-row observer of similar efforts over the past 15 years, I could muster neither response. In lumping the Iraq mess in with the Palestinian problem--and suggesting the first could not be fixed unless the second was too--the...

Sen. Arlen Specter, a 26-year Senate Republican, said he will visit Syria despite loud objections by the Bush administration, contending the situation in Iraq is so dire that it is time Congress step up to the plate and see what it can do. Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview late Friday that he is planning a trip to the Middle East that will include Israel and Syria. The senator said he and other Republicans are concerned that the administration's policies in the Middle East are not working and that other GOP members may follow in his footsteps. "I've talked to...

Much ink has already been spilled on the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report. Welcomed by liberals and condemned by conservatives, more importantly it has been rejected by just every public figure in Iraq. Without a doubt, the report’s most controversial recommendation was the call for direct talks with the governments of Syria and Iran. What has gone unrecognized, however, are the stunning misconceptions underlying that recommendation. (Note: the page references below all refer to the PDF version of the report, which can be downloaded here. All emphasis is my own). Misconception #1: “Given the ability of Iran and Syria to...

I expected the report of the Iraq Study Group (or ISG, known in my home as the Iraq Surrender Group) would be bad, but what they delivered was quite horrendous. Retired Special Operations Master Sergeant James Hanson titled his post on it at the famous BlackFive blog “Group Studies Iraq- Fails to find clue bag.” Actually, he concludes, they can’t even tell you the color of the clue bag. Here was a commission tasked fix a war and almost none of them had even served in the military. James Baker and Chuck Robb both saw combat as Marines, but for...

How did we go from winning the war in Iraq to losing overnight? Was this decided by the same committee that changed "Peking" to "Beijing"? These word changes are a fortiori evidence that liberals are part of a conspiracy. On what date did "horrible" and "actress" vanish from the English language to be replaced with "horrific" and "actor"? Who decided that? (Meanwhile, I'm still writing "Puff Daddy" in my nightly dream journal when everybody else has started calling him "Diddy.") When did "B.C." (before Christ) and "A.D." (anno Domini, "in the year of the Lord") get replaced with "BCE" (before...

Imagine the progress Franklin D. Roosevelt might have made as commander in chief of American forces during the Second World War if only he could have had the benefit of advice from James Baker, Lee Hamilton and the other members of the Iraq Study Group. Today's column applies its lessons -- indeed, whole sections of its text -- to that earlier quagmire: Snip Despite the greatest mass mobilization in our country's history, the enemy remains on the offensive and is proceeding to expand its earlier gains. To quote one of the distinguished historians on our extensive panel of consultants: "So...

Upon further study, what strikes me most about the Iraq Study Group report, or ISGR, is its profound naivete. The group could better identify its operative philosophy as "unrealism," rather than realism. The modern form of foreign policy "realism" emerged, according to "The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World," in reaction to "idealism," an "approach which held that countries were united in an underlying harmony of interest – a view shattered by the outbreak of World War II." But there's more: "Rather than study the world as it might be, Realists maintained that a science of international politics must...

Bush seeks advice on Iraq policy Mr Bush is to make a televised address on Iraq before Christmas US President George W Bush has opened three days of intensive talks on Iraq, as he weighs possible policy changes. Without mentioning Iran and Syria by name, Mr Bush said Iraq's neighbours also bore responsibility for helping foster Iraqi security and democracy. His comments came after consultations with senior State Department officials. The talks follow a recent report on US policy in Iraq that called for urgent action to stop "a slide towards chaos", including talks with Iran and Syria. The...

Democrats aren't scrambling to endorse recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, a tactic that largely leaves President Bush alone to salvage the war. Instead, the party that will control Congress in January plans to focus on stepped-up oversight of Bush's plans for the war. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who will take over the Armed Services Committee, says he'll hold three hearings on Bush's plans for Iraq and is prepared to subpoena documents to review past missteps. Democrats also are eyeing ways to attach conditions to war funds that won't hurt troops and may even attract Republican support. Sen. Robert...

Strategic redeployment. Phased drawdown. Exit strategy. However one phrases it, Washington seems to be turning a page in the story of Iraq. The midterm elections, the subsequent resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the release of the Iraq Study Group's report last week all suggest that the transformational objectives that led U.S. forces into Iraq are being supplanted by an unmistakable and bipartisan desire to bring troops home, end this mess and move on. That impulse, while understandable, reflects the national narcissism that dogs much of U.S. foreign policy. We think Iraq is about us. We made it...

Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip welcomed the report of the Iraq Study Group, presented by former US Secretary of State James Baker, which recognizes Islam as the “new giant of the world.” “The report proves that this is the era of Islam and of jihad,” said Abu Ayman, a senior leader of Islamic Jihad from Jenin. Islamic Jihad has been responsible for every suicide bombing in the past two years. Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas’ military wing, said Baker's report is a victory for Islam brought about by “Allah and his angels.”

Iraq's national security adviser on Sunday said that Iraq needs more "strategic patience" from Washington to defeat terrorist violence that threatens to swarm the region if the U.S. pulls out too soon. "If we don't act to contain al-Qaida, the violence will spread like hell, not only to Saudi Arabia and the GCC (Gulf Arab) countries but to Syria, Iran and beyond," al-Rubaie told the International Institute of Strategic Studies conference in the Bahraini capital. "We in Iraq would like you to exercise some strategic patience for this paradigm shift," al-Rubaie said. "We need some time to retreat to our...

"We've now heard from the Iraq Study Group, but we need the White House to become the Iraq Results Group." — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton responding to the Iraq Study Group's recommendations

While the White House remains wary of the proposal to talk with Iran, Tehran sources tell TIME that the regime believes such talks are in the country's best interest...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani rejected the Iraq Study Group's report Sunday, calling it "very dangerous" to Iraq's sovereignty and constitution. "We can smell in it the attitude of James Baker," Talabani said, referring to the report's co-chair who served as secretary of state under President George H. W. Bush during the 1991 Iraq war. Talabani blamed Baker for leaving then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in power after that conflict, which ousted Iraqi troops from Kuwait. He also criticized the report for recommending a law that would allow thousands of former officials from Hussein's ousted Baath party to...

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH Hon. George W. Bush The White House Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear Mr. President: You have just received the report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) with its 79 recommendations for policy changes, force redeployments and other course corrections with respect to the conflict in Iraq. We believe you have responded properly in welcoming this product -- but reserving judgment as to whether you will accept its suggestions. This is especially important because of the argument being made in some quarters that, in light of the unanimity exhibited by the distinguished Republican and Democratic...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The Iraqi president said Sunday the bipartisan U.S. report calling for a new approach to the war offered dangerous recommendations that would undermine his country's sovereignty and were "an insult to the people of Iraq." President Jalal Talabani was the most senior government official to take a stand against the Iraq Study Group report, which has come under criticism from leaders of the governing Shiite and Kurdish parties. He said the report "is not fair, is not just, and it contains some very dangerous articles which undermine the sovereignty of Iraq and the constitution." He singled...

Well, the ISG -- the Illustrious Seniors' Group -- has released its 79-point plan. How unprecedented is it? Well, it seems Iraq is to come under something called the "Iraq International Support Group." If only Neville Chamberlain had thought to propose a "support group" for Czechoslovakia, he might still be in office. Or guest-hosting for Oprah. But, alas, such flashes of originality are few and far between in what's otherwise a testament to conventional wisdom. How conventional is the ISG's conventional wisdom? Try page 49: "RECOMMENDATION 5: The Support Group should consist of Iraq and all the states bordering Iraq,...

President Bush says the Iraq Study Group report “did a good job of showing what is possible.” Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said, “It offers a strong way forward.” The New York Post called it the work of “surrender monkeys.” There is no shortage of opinions. Here are a dozen worth considering.

I know a Marine. He sits in a bar in North Carolina. He came there by way of Fallujah. The same close-cropped blonde fuzz glimmers on his head in the dim light as burned under the hot sun of Iraq. He’s the greatest storyteller I know, spinning tales about his overseas exploits, both combat and otherwise—only with the express permission of the mixed company present, of course. He speaks with a wit and color that would surprise John Kerry. He is not a quiet man. But I wonder what he would say this week. I wonder what he would say...

Steady condemnation from conservatives for the Iraq Study Group report may be providing some cover to the Bush administration as it completes its own review of strategy in Iraq, apparently with little enthusiasm for the panel's prescription of U.S. troop withdrawal and dialogue with Syria and Iran. The criticism of the panel, co-chaired by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), has burst forth from the leading institutions of the right: the National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Weekly Standard; conservative talk radio; and scholars at some of...

The release of the report by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group this week exposed deep fissures among Republicans over how to manage a war that many fear will haunt their party — and the nation — for years to come. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page described the report as a “strategic muddle,” Richard Perle called it “absurd,” Rush Limbaugh labeled it “stupid,” and The New York Post portrayed the leaders of the group, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic member of Congress, as “surrender monkeys.” Republican moderates clung to the...

Iraq Study Group: A Substitute for Victory Ryan Mauro TDCAnalyst@aol.com As critics debate over the recommendations put forth by the Iraq Study Group, politicians on all sides have been given an easy pass. The Iraq Study Group's positions will become every major presidential aspirant's positions. Any politician willing to challenge this report's conclusions will be seen as narrow-minded, and out-of-touch with the situation in Iraq. As of Wednesday, December 6, 2006, the major debate ends, and the question becomes how to implement these changes to bring stability in the region. However, stability will require the consent of the Baathists of...

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said Tehran is willing to help the US withdraw from Iraq. But he added that Iran would only assist if the Americans changed their attitude towards Tehran. The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says Mr Mottaki did not spell out the change of attitude required. But she adds that Iran probably wants the US to drop its insistence that it freeze its nuclear programme before any kind of talks. She adds that other conditions may include a timetable for the US withdrawal. The US has said Iran - and Syria - should not attach...

The Iraq Study Group’s call for negotiations with Iran and Syria as “a way forward” has been widely derided. It is, abjectly, a return to September 10th thinking — to the days when terror masters like Yasser Arafat were feted as statesmen at White House galas, when terror organizations like al Qaeda operated with impunity from well-known safe havens, and when our government’s idea of countering atrocities was the filing of indictments against a handful of savages. IRAN, HEZBOLLAH & AL QAEDA Mohamed was ultimately charged with participation in al Qaeda’s war against the United States. When he pled guilty...

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - 1209dvs-iraq-violence Iran could play a crucial role in curbing Iraq's Shiite militias if the U.S. opens a dialogue with Tehran as recommended by the Iraq Study Group, many in the Mideast say. But Iran's cooperation would depend on how much it trusts Washington in any deal that was struck. And all observers agree that Iran alone, even with help from its ally Syria, cannot bring peace and that a collective effort of Mideast nations is needed. So far this week's recommendations by the bipartisan commission have not swayed President Bush from his opposition to opening talks...

As pressure mounts for a change of course in Iraq, the Bush administration is groping for a viable new strategy for the president to unveil by Christmas, with deliberations now focused on three main options to redefine the U.S. military and political engagement, according to officials familiar with the debate. The major alternatives include a short-term surge of 15,000 to 30,000 additional U.S. troops to secure Baghdad and accelerate the training of Iraqi forces. Another strategy would redirect the U.S. military away from the internal strife to focus mainly on hunting terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda. And the third would concentrate...

The almost instant reject of the central recommendations of the ISG Report by key officials in Iraq and Israel, and serious observers of the war is a refreshing bit of resolve. The criticism is withering and deserved. "A fatuous process yields, necessarily, fatuous results," writes Eliot Cohen in today's Wall Street Journal, a piece I hope the editors make available to the public generally. He continues: War, and warlike statecraft, is a hard business, and though this is supposed to be a report dominated by "realists," there is nothing realistic in failing to spell out the bloody deeds, grim probabilities...

The widely touted Iraqi Study Group has been revealed to be a disappointing hodgepodge of suggestions which, in part or as a whole, do not constitute a coherent strategy or serve to promote American long-term interests. In a case of life imitating art, waiting for Godot was much more meaningful than the arrival. When the ISG “recommendations” that have been tried or have currently been implemented are removed, we are left with several mediocre ideas that are overwhelmed by the preponderance of a few that are patently absurd. The myopic suggestion of conjoining stability in Iraq to Israeli “land for...

It is not a happy mood in the Oval Office. Poppy is sobbing, his face in his hands, slumped in one of the yellow-and-blue striped chairs. Laura is screaming the words “Oscar de la Renta” and “rendition” into her cellphone, still seeing red after showing up at a White House gala in the same $8,400 red gown as three other women who did not happen to be first lady. Bob Gates is grim-faced, but not as grim-faced as Barbara, whose look could freeze not only the Potomac but the Tigris and the Euphrates. Scowcroft is over on the couch, trying...

THE Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani has angrily rejected the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group in the United States and warned of "grave consequences" if there is any delay in deciding the fate of the oil-rich region claimed by his people.Mr Barzani, president of the 15-year-old autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq and a staunch ally of the US, also criticised the ISG for not visiting his region, saying that was a "major shortcoming that adversely influenced the credibility of the assessment". Mr Barzani said the high-profile panel led by the former US secretary of state James Baker, which released...

WASHINGTON - Although the Iraq Study Group's report will not magically solve the problems in Iraq, the "hell of a good try" proves that politicians of opposite parties can work together on major issues, former Sen. Alan Simpson said Wednesday. Iraq has become "one of the most vexatious problems of our lives," said Simpson, a Republican from Wyoming. "This one is a tough one," he said. "We don't have a silver bullet." Simpson and the other commission members presented their report to President Bush at 7 a.m. at the White House. An engaged Bush spent an hour with them, asked...

The almost instant reject of the central recommendations of the ISG Report by key officials in Iraq and Israel, and serious observers of the war is a refreshing bit of resolve. The criticism is withering and deserved. "A fatuous process yields, necessarily, fatuous results," writes Eliot Cohen in today's Wall Street Journal, Now comes Israel's newest cabinet minister, Avigdor Lieberman, whose portfolio is strategic affairs and includes Iran. He is visiting the U.S. “The dialogue with Iran will be a 100-percent failure, just like it was with North Korea,” said Mr. Lieberman, who came here from the Soviet Union in...

Top Democrats in Congress left a White House meeting with President Bush on Friday frustrated over what they perceived as his reluctance to embrace major recommendations from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. "I just didn't feel there today, the president in his words or his demeanor, that he is going to do anything right away to change things drastically," Senate Majority Leader-elect Harry Reid, D-Nev., said following the Oval Office meeting. "He is tepid in what he talks about doing. Someone has to get the message to this man that there have to be significant changes." Bush has been cool...

LONDON, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The report by an elite U.S. panel on Iraq is flawed because it assumes that there is a common interest among states in the Middle East to stop a slide into chaos in Iraq, a senior U.N. envoy said on Friday. Terje Roed-Larsen, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy on Syria-Lebanon issues, said some regional states had an interest in maintaining a "calibrated or designed disequilibrium" in Iraq to inflict pain on Washington. "They want to keep it in disequilibrium, which does not lead to collapse, because that will bog down the Americans, their forces,...

Iraq Study Group Fails ----------------------- Posted: December 8, 20061:00 a.m. EasternThe Iraq Study Group report was a noble undertaking by well-meaning bureaucrats and former politicians. But the report was a failure – a complete failure. While their intentions may have been good, the group failed to construct a vision for a new way forward in Iraq that is significantly different from what the United States military and her allies are already doing there. What they did manage to do was highlight the current problems in Iraq, and in doing so provide fodder for the news media to repeat the...

Column One: Jews Wake Up! Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 8, 2006 When the history of our times is written, this week will be remembered as the week that Washington decided to let the Islamic Republic of Iran go nuclear. Hopefully it will also be remembered as the moment the Jews arose and refused to allow Iran to go nuclear. With the publication of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group chaired by former US secretary of state James Baker III and former congressman Lee Hamilton, the debate about the war in Iraq changed. From a war for victory...

Former White House advisers to George H.W. Bush are keenly disappointed and concerned about the current President Bush's initial reaction to the report by the Iraq Study Group. They consider him rather dismissive of the group's conclusions, issued yesterday, which include the view that current Iraq policy is failing. The group recommends a variety of important changes, such as assigning U.S. troops to play more of an advisory and training role and less of a combat role. The ISG also recommends that the United States withdraw most of its combat brigades by early 2008 and that the administration increase diplomatic...

The co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group were at the head of a long table, and James Baker scrunched over as he draped his right arm around Lee Hamilton to underscore a point he was making. The move was prompted by my question about the Bush administration policy of using talks with antagonistic nations to reward behavior, rather as diplomatic tools toward a goal. That means the Bush White House is not willing to engage in direct talks with Syria and Iran to get their help on Iraq. President Bush reaffirmed his position at Thursday's press conference with British Prime...

Baker Surrenders to a Defeated IranDec 6, 2006Scott Sullivan - Persian Journal Leave to James Baker -- the master of turning a US surrender and retreat from Iraq into an art masterpiece. When Gates testified before Congress yesterday, he said he did not know if the US "was winning or losing" in Iraq. He needs to talk to his close friend James Baker, who told Congress in no uncertain terms today that the US is definitely losing in Iraq and must therefore sue for peace. These two need to get their stories straight. They are both wrong. The US is...

President Bush has received the report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group - a panel of foreign policy experts set up by Congress to scrutinize the situation in Iraq and draft recommendations for change. We have details from VOA's Paula Wolfson at the White House. Members of the Iraq Study Group arrived at the White House before dawn to deliver their report to the president. "This report gives a very tough assessment of the situation in Iraq. It is a report that brings some really very interesting proposals and we will act in a timely fashion," Mr. Bush says. They...

Israelis Wary of Baker's Report By Julie Stahl CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief December 06, 2006 Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - An influential bipartisan panel is due to present recommendations Wednesday on U.S. options in Iraq, but some Israelis worry that the report could have significant and harmful repercussions for their country. President Bush has reportedly assured Israeli leaders that the report by the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by Republican James Baker III and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, deals primarily with Iraq. But some experts here, citing Baker's background and approach, believe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will again be dragged into the fray....