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According to Aaron Klein of WND, President Obama is strongly considering appointing his former Middle East adviser, Daniel Kurtzer, as U.S. ambassador to Syria, according to Syrian diplomatic sources: Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, long has been seen in Jerusalem as one of the Jewish state's greatest foes in Washington. He has been identified by Jewish and Israeli leaders, including prime ministers speaking on the record, as biased against Israel, and is notorious for urging extreme concessions from the Jewish state. Kurtzer came under fire last summer when he traveled to Damascus where he reportedly urged Syrian officials...

An 'Arabist' 1 Jimmy Carter2 James Baker3 George Galloway An 'Arabist' An Arabist can be referred to 1) someone that is well knowledgeable of Arab culture and nationality. But can also be referred to a radical nationalist anti non-Arab or 2) a 'fanatical' supporter of Arabism's wars, dictatorship and bigoted policies. Arabists control over institutions, policy, not only in Britain Arabists dominate the Foreign office [705], but even in the US, in the book: 'Arabists': The Romance of an American Elite by Robert D. Kaplan Blending history, reportage and sharp profiles of key players, this insightful study tells how...

Anyone familiar with the threat posed by the advancing American Fifth Column understands all too clearly that our Constitution is under attack. Whether it is the insistence that the Constitution is a living document meant to conform to the will of the times or the institution of political correctness – a shadow set of laws effectively usurping the laws of our Constitutional Republic – the American Fifth Column is slowly, incrementally, systematically, chipping away at the wisdom as set forth by our Founders and Framers. With news that a non-governmentally charged commission is introducing a measure that would impose “group...

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - Five former U.S. secretaries of state are urging the next presidential administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and open a dialogue with Iran. Each says closing the facility in Cuba would bolster America's image abroad. Regarding Iran, they say it's important to maintain contact with adversaries and allies alike.

Now it seems as though George W. Bush might be paying more attention to former Secretary of State James A. Baker III’s Iraq Study Group than he initially let on. For starters, the president’s apparent about-face last week from his earlier rejection of meetings with Iran or Syria falls right in line with one of Baker’s chief recommendations.Baker’s blue-ribbon panel, co-chaired with former Democratic Rep. Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana, unveiled 79 recommendations in December for salvaging Iraq. The 10 members of the group — five from each political party — checked their partisanship at the door to draw a...

resident Bill Clinton spoke about global challenges from terrorism to health care policy to sustainability at a near-capacity crowd at Autry Court yesterday afternoon. The topic of the speech was “Embracing our Common Humanity: Meeting the Challenges of Global Interdependence in the 21st Century.” Baker Institute Director, Ambassador Edward Djerejian, President David Leebron and former Secretary of State — and Honorary Chair of the Baker Institute for Public Policy — James Baker each made opening remarks. After lamenting the length of time Clinton took to schedule a trip to Rice, Baker drew laughter from the audience by alluding to Senator...

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...

 What Went Wrong with James A. Baker III? By Daniel Pipes Back in his glory days as secretary of state, James A. Baker, III, was widely seen as hostile to Israel, a charge I defended him from, once in the Washington Post (”This Administration is Good for Israel”) and once in Commentary magazine ("Bush, Clinton, and the Jews"). A report in Insight magazine today, "Baker wants Israel excluded from regional conference," caught my eye, however. Here are some excerpts: The White House has been examining a proposal by James Baker to launch a Middle East peace effort without Israel. The...

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...

Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker used an Israeli businessman to evade American sanctions in Iraq while collecting a debt from Saddam Hussein. According to a report by WorldNet Daily reporter Aaron Klein, Baker hired Nir Gouaz, president of Caesar Global Securities in Israel, to collect a debt from the Hussein regime in 1998. Baker is a senior partner at the Houston-based law firm, Baker Botts, which made some $30 million in fees from the deal which the Israeli businessman mediated. Gouaz said the Iraqi regime owed some $1.65 billion to the Korean Hyundai Engineering firm for a series...

WELL done video! Zucker says in Comedy what everyone else is afraid to say!

Businessman charges ex-secretary of state used middleman to 'sell out' Israel for profit RAMAT HASHARON, Israel – The law firm at which former Secretary of State James Baker is a senior partner used an Israeli middleman to bypass U.S. sanctions on Iraq and push through a multimillion-dollar collection effort involving the regime of Saddam Hussein, according to a businessman here who said he mediated the deal.

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...

Coming GOP war … over the war! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: December 12, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern "I believe this is a recipe that will lead to our defeat ... in Iraq," said John McCain. He has a point. For what does the Iraq Study Group say? We are not winning this war. Our situation is "grave and deteriorating." Yet we may succeed if only we will withdraw all U.S. combat brigades in 15 months and bring Syria and Iran to the table to resolve the political crisis. This is simply not credible. Nowhere in this report are there any "disincentives" to...

I’ve taken several pot shots at Jim Baker and the Iraq Study Group, but after watching the appearance of Baker and Lee Hamilton on Fox News Sunday, I’m thinking of changing my mind.

The head of the research division of Military Intelligence, Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz, said Sunday that Syrian President Bashar Assad is preparing for a war with Israel. He said that Assad has ordered increased production of long-range missiles and instructed the Syrian army to position its anti-tank missiles closer to the Syrian border with Israel, on the Golan Heights. But, Baidatz told the cabinet, while Assad is "preparing the Syrian army for the possibility of a military conflict with Israel, on the other hand, he is not ruling out the possibility of reaching a political settlement with Israel." He stressed...

Tonight I'd like to welcome James Baker and Lee Hamilton, co-chairs of the Iraq Study Group. Good evening, gentlemen. Yo, Brit. How they hangin'?

The report of the Iraq Study Group is not exactly a strategy for unconditional surrender, but it's what you get from an expensive corporation lawyer trained never to let conviction, purpose or principle get in the way of a settlement that will stay together at least until the lawyers cash their checks. It was all in a day's work for Jim Baker. Mr. Baker is a favorite target of the tabloids, inevitably portrayed as vain, pompous, arrogant and eager to settle scores. The New York Post couldn't wait to have a little clean fun, transposing the heads of Mr. Baker...

The members of the Iraq Study Group hope that their collaboration will, among things, help usher in a new spirit of bipartisanship. So as a Republican, I'll offer this bipartisan thought -- other than Jimmy Carter, I can't think of a major public figure I like less than James Baker. The two share a strong desire to stick it to Israel. I've always thought that Baker's is less pathological than Carter's, but after reading the ISG report (and Scott's post below), I'm no longer certain. Baker's position as head of the ISG has provided him with one last chance to...

Tha Baker-Hamilton ISG report reminds me of the scene in "The Graduate" when Benjamin tells his parents that he's getting married. His father comments, not unreasonably, "Benjamin, this whole idea seems rather half-baked." Benjamin responds, "No, I assure you, it's fully baked." Particularly with respect to its thread involving Israel, the ISG report is both half-baked and fully Bakered. Has James Baker had a new idea in the past twenty years? Like Dr. Causabon in Middlemarch, Baker wanders the earth with the key to all mythologies. Historical developments have not altered Baker's ideological fixation on the centrality of Israel to...

NEW YORK While the Iraq Study Group report earned generally positive reviews at newspapers across the country today, Thursday's front page of the New York Post took a far different (but typically outrageous) approach, picturing James Baker and Lee Hamilton, the chairmen of the panel, as "surrender monkeys" -- with their faces pasted on the heads of actual chimps. The front page story by Niles Latham declares, "The Iraq Study Group report delivered to President Bush yesterday contains 79 separate recommendations - but not one that explains how American forces can defeat the terrorist insurgents, only ways to bring the...

Was the Baker Commission bought off by the Saudis? Here is a link to the Law offices of Baker Botts. http://www.bakerbotts.com/infoCenter/ Notice that they have offices in two Arab countries. “Lawyers in the Riyadh office have served in community positions throughout Riyadh and Saudi Arabia as a whole. For example, since 1996 we have had lawyers acting as general counsel for the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce and the Saudi Arabia country coordinator for the American Bar Association's Section on International Law and Practice. In addition, the perspective and experience of James A. Baker III, 61st U.S. Secretary of State...

If you look closely at the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, you can see remnants of the last time James Baker traded the long term demise of Israel for favors from Arab countries. I have great respect for James Baker and his wisdom and experience. His handling of the President’s defense when the Gore team tried to steal the Florida vote in 2000 was masterful, but he has always been an Arabist first in his Middle East dealings and diplomacy.

Today at 7 AM James Baker gave a preview of his Iraq study group report to President Bush. Afterwards the study he will be releasing his report to the general public. It has been widely speculated that the report will blame Israel for the war and for any tension in the Middle East. When I wrote this last night, I was on a plane from my Nashville home to Washington DC. As I looked for a copy of the in-flight magazine in the pouch in front of me, there under an old coffee cup that smelled like whiskey, I found...

THE SUPERANNUATED membership of the Iraq Study Group shepherded by former secretary of state James Baker conjures a line from the film The Sixth Sense: "I see dead people." Two centuries ago, Europeans dreaming of reform and freedom must have felt just as crestfallen as they watched their continent's ghoulish elder statesmen gather for the Congress of Vienna. Both assemblies symbolize a victory for the ancien régime, the bloody-minded refusal to accept that the world has changed profoundly and will continue to change.If the Baker commission is the K-Mart version of the Congress of Vienna, its influence may prove no...

Dec. 5, 2006 0:48 | Updated Dec. 5, 2006 19:24 Official: US talks could isolate Israel By HERB KEINON With the US Iraq Study Group expected to recommend on Wednesday that the US diplomatically engage Syria and Iran, Israeli government sources differ widely about the impact this type of engagement might have on Israel. While a senior defense official said US talks with Iran would lead to a slippery slope that would eventually leave Israel alone facing the Iranian nuclear threat, other government officials indicated that US-Iranian talks were needed to stabilize the region since Iran was "calling the shots"...

  In the frenzied final week of the Iraq Study Group's deliberations, co-chairmen James Baker and Lee Hamilton took time out to pose for a photo spread for a fashion magazine, Men's Vogue. This might seem a dubious decision given the gravity of the moment and their self-appointed roles as the nation's saviors. The "wise men" who counseled Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam and the members of the Kissinger Commission who tried to reshape Ronald Reagan's Central American policies did not sit for Annie Leibovitz in the middle of their endeavors. Nor did they hire a mega-public relations firm to sell...

While George W. Bush's many critics and detractors portray him as facing the same dilemma as Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, Bush himself seems determined to proceed the way Harry Truman did in Korea -- or, as some might put it, as Winston Churchill did after Dunkirk. Leading Democrats like Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan have been calling for troop pullouts from Iraq starting in four to six months. The Iraq Study Group co-chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, The New York Times tells us, will recommend a "gradual pullback" of troops, direct negotiations with Iran and Syria and pressure...

AS SECRETARY of state from 1989 to 1992, James Baker was involved in some of the worst foreign-policy blunders of the first Bush administration. One such blunder was the stubborn refusal to support independence for the long-subjugated republics of the Soviet Union, culminating in the president's notorious "Chicken Kiev" speech urging Ukrainians to stay in their Soviet cage. Another was the appeasement of Syrian dictator Hafez Assad during the run up to the 1991 Gulf War, when Bush and Baker blessed Syria's brutal occupation of Lebanon in exchange for Assad's acquiescence in the campaign to undo Iraq's occupation of Kuwait....

President Bush was right to declare yesterday in Latvia that he will not withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq until the “mission is complete” because “we can accept nothing less than victory for our children and our grandchildren.” It appears Bush’s characteristic Texas stubbornness is the only thing standing between victory and the U.S. defeat that has all but been proclaimed by Washington’s foreign policy establishment and its friends in the mainstream media like “60 Minutes” reporter Lara Logan. She insisted in her weekend interview with Gen. John Abizaid that “managing the defeat” is America’s only option.

The following letter appeared in a Florida newspaper this week: 11/16/06 Voters handed win to the terrorists Editor: I find it painful that I had to see Americans through Islamic terrorists' eyes, for what they really are. You Americans who voted the Democratic ticket, handed the Al Quaida and Islamic terrorists their second greatest victory after 9/11. Through the brainwashing rhetoric of the Democratic party, you bought into their aspirations to recapture the White House at the expense of the safety of our country and children. I am ashamed of my fellow Americans who no longer have the will to...

Iraqis haven't forgotten the aftermath of Desert Storm. With Saddam's troops forced to retreat from Kuwait, Shia Arabs throughout southern Iraq rose up against Saddam's tyranny. Kurds in the north also rebelled. Many Sunnis in Baghdad anticipated the end of Saddam's "Tikiriti" despotism. Numerous Iraqis tell me post-Desert Storm they anticipated liberation. Instead, they got a dose of so-called Realpolitik -- mass murder and a return to dictatorship. In 1991, Saddam did not fall. His Republican Guards attacked the Shia towns and massacred their inhabitants. At least 50,000 Iraqis were murdered by Saddam's defeated army. In April 2003, America toppled...

The Iraq Study Group is charged with correcting the US course in Iraq in a manner that will be broadly acceptable to the ruling Republicans and the opposition Democrats.The bipartisan panel's influence became apparent as clamour for a change in Iraq policy climaxed in a mid-term poll defeat for the Republicans. A panel member, former CIA boss Robert Gates, was nominated to replace Donald Rumsfeld, who quit as defence secretary after the election. And weeks before the report was to be released, the White House appeared to endorse one of its expected recommendations by saying it was ready for talks...

Column One: Olmert's ill-timed Washington visit Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 10, 2006 Many downplay the significance of the US congressional elections. But the truth is nonetheless glaring. It would seem that on Tuesday, the George W. Bush era came to a close. The consequences of this turn of events on Israel will be dramatic. Unfortunately, it is doubtful that anyone has explained them to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ahead of his scheduled visit to the White House next week. Across the political spectrum in Washington today there is a sense that after years of wavering, in the wake...

High-level White House advisers are said to be ready to call for a major change in Washington's policy on Iraq.Members of the panel, which is led by former US Secretary of State James Baker, told the LA Times the shift could include phased troop withdrawals. A senior US official reaffirmed Washington's support for Iraq's leaders but said they must increasingly assume responsibility for security. The Iraq situation is a key issue in November's US mid-term elections. In a separate development UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that British forces will not "walk away" from Iraq or Afghanistan until their...

by Mark Finkelstein October 16, 2006 - 17:58 Doth Chris Matthews protest too much? Interviewing James Baker on this afternoon's 'Hardball' about his new book on a life in politics, Matthews raised the risk a political party fracturing in the course of a presidential primary campaign: "How do you hold your party together when you have people, secular candidates like John McCain who's often in that [guest] chair, and Rudy Giuliani running against Brownback, and people like that, Frist and George Allen perhaps, who are real cultural conservatives?" Baker: "We hold it together the same way that you hold your...

Reason Foundation    free minds and free markets October 12, 2006 Breaking Up Ain't Hard to Do James Baker prepares the exits in Iraq Michael Young In Washington, there is a frequent step before old soldiers die and after they’ve faded away; recruitment into a blue ribbon panel established to resolve one administration headache or other. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by a former secretary of state, James Baker, and a former congressman, Lee Hamilton, is one such venture. The group, whose creation was urged by Congress, is tasked with recommending new ways for the Bush administration to deal with...

In last week's Geopolitical Intelligence Report, we discussed the way in which the United States has opened up a window of opportunity for other powers. Iraq and Afghanistan have absorbed a large percentage of U.S. ground combat capability, limiting U.S. military options elsewhere. An internal political crisis has further limited the Bush administration's options. With the outcome of the November midterm elections uncertain, outside powers have a window of opportunity in which to take risks. This week, the North Koreans took advantage of that window of opportunity. At this moment, it is not clear what Pyongyang actually has achieved: We...

Preview and analysis for Weekend Talk Shows, 10-1-06 and 10-8-06 It's week five of the drive by media campaign to win back power in Washington for those who truly deserve it (in their minds), the Dhimmicrats.  This week the attention shifts away from President Bush, because their lame but continuous attacks were beginning to work for him.  Instead they are starting to point out to the ignorant boobs out there that the Republicans are really the party of homo values, kiddie porn, dirty talk and probably worse things, like drugs or even (horrors) rock and roll!  They fully expect all...

Conservative national security allies of President Bush are in revolt against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying that she is incompetent and has reversed the administration’s national security and foreign policy agenda. The conservatives, who include Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle and leading current and former members of the Pentagon and National Security Council, have urged the president to transfer Miss Rice out of the State Department and to an advisory role. They said Miss Rice, stemming from her lack of understanding of the Middle East, has misled the president on Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict. "The president has yet to...

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....

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...

Blame GOP Malaise on Bush's Team by Robert Novak Posted Feb 19, 2006 When Dick Cheney finally broke his silence by answering questions from Fox's Brit Hume last Wednesday, four days after the hunting accident, many Republicans could hardly believe it. They were stunned that the vice president indicated he had no regrets about the way the incident was handled. Every Republican I contacted had regrets in abundance. Bush-bashers delighted in exaggerating Cheney's post-accident conduct as a metaphor for everything wrong with George W. Bush's presidency in its sixth year. Nevertheless, there are supporters of the president (and the vice...

On Monday, a bipartisan commission headed by former President Jimmy Carter and ex-Secretary of State James Baker surprised most observers and agreed that Americans should be required to have photo IDs to vote. In fact, though the American debate over this is vitriolic, photo IDs are commonly used to prevent voter fraud across the world. Democrats often don't buy it. Howard Dean recently claimed that the Republican push for voter IDs is "a new Southern strategy and a new Jim Crow." Others have claimed that the requirement would victimize Hispanics, African-Americans and the poor. (Proponents answer that the IDs will...

John Bolton: The Right Man for the Job By James A. Baker III and Edwin Meese III New York Times | May 12, 2005 The image that critics are painting of John Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be our representative at the United Nations, does not bear the slightest resemblance to the man we have known and worked with for a quarter-century. While we cannot speak to the truthfulness of the specific allegations by his former colleagues, we can speak to what we know. And during our time with Mr. Bolton at the Justice and State Departments, we never knew...

THE image that critics are painting of John Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be our representative at the United Nations, does not bear the slightest resemblance to the man we have known and worked with for a quarter-century. While we cannot speak to the truthfulness of the specific allegations by his former colleagues, we can speak to what we know. And during our time with Mr. Bolton at the Justice and State Departments, we never knew of any instance in which he abused or berated anyone he worked with. Nor was his loyalty to us or to the presidents we...

It did not feature much in the way of butterfly ballots, hanging chads or protracted Supreme Court fights. But the first hearing yesterday of the Commission on Federal Election Reform made it clear that the 2004 election was not without problems. Former president Jimmy Carter and ex-secretary of state James A. Baker III, who co-chair the commission, invited a dozen experts to American University to recommend ways to improve the nation's voting system. The commission will consider those suggestions, along with others expected at a second hearing in June, and submit its own recommendations to Congress. Former president Jimmy Carter,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former President Jimmy Carter will lead a bipartisan commission to examine problems with the U.S. election system, American University's Center for Democracy and Election Management said on Thursday. Carter, a Democrat whose Carter Center has monitored more than 50 elections around the world, will co-chair the private commission with Republican James Baker, who served as Secretary of State under President George H. W. Bush. Former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat who lost his seat in the 2004 election, will also participate. "I am concerned about the state of our electoral system and believe we need...

As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice embarked on her maiden voyage, it was reported that she departed from America armed with a new policy paper on how to implement the Quartet's road map produced by the James Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University......One of the things that make the paper significant is that it bears former US secretary of state James Baker's name. Not only did Baker serve under the president's father, he now plays a formal role in mobilizing international support for Iraqi reconstruction efforts. As well, the team that composed the report included senior policy...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 - President Bush on Tuesday bestowed the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on three of the central architects and executors of the war in Iraq, one of the president's strongest efforts yet at putting a formal stamp of success on a war whose outcome is still a question. The recipients were Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the overall commander of the invasion of Iraq; L. Paul Bremer III, the chief civilian administrator of the American occupation of the country; and George J. Tenet, the longtime director of central intelligence who built the case for...