Will the Baker/Hamilton Commission get this war right?

NRO Online ^ | 11/16/06 | M. Leeden

[grandpa jones]

The Baker/Hamilton Commission has a chance to dramatically reshape our thinking about American foreign policy, if only it will ask the right question. They should follow the guidance of one of the last century’s most brilliant thinkers, Ludwig Wittgenstein. In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein asks an apparently straightforward question: what do all games have in common? He ties himself in mental knots trying to get the answer, but nothing works. Finally he realizes that the question was posed wrongly. It should have been: Is there anything all games have in common? That’s the real question (and the real answer is “not much”), but the language of the first question tricked him into searching for an answer that does not exist.

Our strategists are constantly asked, how can we win the war in Iraq? But it is the wrong question, and therefore has no correct answer. Read Reuel Gerecht in Friday’s Wall Street Journal: “(The Baker/Hamilton Commission) cannot escape from an unavoidable reality: We either declare defeat and withdraw completely tout de suite, or we surge troops into Baghdad and fight. The ISG will surely try to find some middle ground between these positions, which, of course, doesn’t exist.”

Instead of trapping themselves in an imaginary quagmire, the commissioners can help us face the real war. What’s going on in Iraq is not “the war,” which is raging over the entire world. The real question — the life and death question — is: How can we win the war in the Middle East, which now extends from Afghanistan to Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, and Somalia?

[grandpa jones]

Leeden puts it all into perspective.

[bpjam]

Baker is an arabist. Hamilton is a democrat. And the other members have accumulated experience in military or foreign affairs matters of......???? Gosh, how can it lose?

[dirtboy]

They are all well-versed in the dank cynicism of realpolitik.

They will save us by re-defining objectives to a point where they have no real meaning, consequences be damned.

[grandpa jones]

I never knew you were such an optimist. Hehe :)

[Ciexyz]

Game theory -- John Nash bump.

[gregwest]

These guys are all devoted globalists. Having the United States act in its own interest is not their religion. Eroding national sovereignty and subordinating to a system of global government is. You can take that to the bank.

[Cicero]

It requires an Iran/Syria policy.

Sheesh. I've only been saying this since we first went into Afghanistan, only then it was an Iraq/Iran/Syria policy. And Saudi Arabia, too. Somewhere along the way President Bush got distracted from his vow to destroy those who give shelter to our enemy.

"Either you are with us, or against us." Fine words, but somewhat haphazardly put into effect. No, we couldn't take on everyone at once, but we should have disposed of the Syrian regime long since.

Now it's probably too late, until they nuke an American city or two, which might stir things up again and remind people what happened on 9/11, which the Democrats seem to have wiped completely from their memories.

[PhilDragoo]

The horrible thing is that Robert Gates coauthored a CFR paper in 2004 calling for negotiations with Iran to attain stability in the region.

So, Bush has thrown Stay the Course and Axis of Evil on the ash heap of history, and is breathlessly pursuing a Munich 1938 solution, embracing one who calls for the erasure of Israel while denying the actual Holocaust.

Ledeen rightly calls for actively seeking regime change in Damascus and Tehran, but Bush's Iran policy is now virtually indistinguishable from Kerry's expounded in his 2004 campaign.

Both call for "engaging Iran".

Add that Bolton will be abandoned in lieu of some milk toast like Jim Leach, and it's as sure as the sun coming up in the east that there will be a Dark Age of Shiism descending on the region.

Each day of trusting the obscene "diplomatic process" vis-a-vis Iran's nuclear ambitions is a day nearer to nuclear blackmail.

[ClaireSolt]

Usually, nobody pays any attention to commission reports l ike this. It takes some heat off of the administration. I wish something would take Iraq off the front page and give people a chance to do their work without so much interferance .

[potlatch]

Good post Phil!

[tennmountainman]

Thats the most interesting fact. This commission is not made up of people with foreign policy. Quite the opposite. It looks more like a Domestic Board of Directors.

[nuconvert]

"Serious policies must aim at regime change in Tehran and Damascus. This does not require a military invasion of either country, but it does require active support for anti-regime political groups, combined with an explicit declaration that we want an end to the tyrannies."


Ledeen is more optimistic about Baker, et al than I am.

[FastCoyote]

The only saving grace is that pulling out solves nothing. In other words, this is not a battle it is even possible to walk away from. It's not like when the bully beat you up at school you could go home to mommy and she'd send Dad, or a big brother without anyone being the wiser to pound the bastard. Nope, there is no mommy to go home to to solve the problem, the jihadis will just keep on coming, just like the middle ages.

We are going to kill a lot of muslims someday, just a question of when.

[nuconvert]

Thanks for the ping, Phil

[WOSG]

Brilliant point!

So the real question is NOT "How can we win in Iraq?" the question needs to be "How can we win the War on Islamofascist Terror as a whole?"

Harder question --- but the correct question.

[bpjam]

It must be the vodka talking...

[rfp1234]

--You can take that to the bank.--

Take that to the Ban Ki-Moon, that is...