Half-Baked

National Review, Dec 31, 2006

THE report of the Iraq Study Group is being treated by the media as a tablet handed down from on high, but its analytical poverty is making it a non-starter. James Baker and Lee Hamilton managed to corral a group of ten Republican and Democratic worthies behind the report's 79 recommendations--an accomplishment, to be sure, but unfortunately not one that has any connection to improving conditions in Iraq.

The report calls for a pretentiously capitalized New Diplomatic Offensive. The administration should probably be more diplomatically active in the region. The rising threat from Iran makes our Arab allies and quasi-allies even more important to us, and showing more initiative on the Israeli-Palestinian front will placate them in a relatively cost-free way (since nothing is going to come of any talks until the Palestinians are better governed). But the report makes U.S. outreach to Iran and Syria the centerpiece of its diplomatic proposal--sorry, its New Diplomatic Offensive.

Not even Baker and Hamilton pretend to believe that Iran would respond favorably to such an olive branch. In fact, the report says Tehran would likely rebuff the U.S. Baker believes the rebuff would help the world see Iran's rejectionism. Maybe. But anyone paying attention already knows that Iran is rejectionist, and proving it again won't help us in Iraq.

Baker is more impassioned and hopeful about the prospect of "flipping Syria." The report sets out a fanciful path for doing it. We will persuade the Israelis to give back the Golan Heights (not going to happen), in exchange for wide-ranging changes in the behavior and nature of the Syrian regime, up to and including Syrian leaders' basically turning themselves in for their role in the Hariri assassination (not going to happen). Then, somehow all of this will make a big difference in Iraq, where top commanders and our ambassador all say the next four to six months are crucial.

For all the talk of the realism of the ISG report, all of this is just another way to evade truly grappling with the problem on the ground: the lack of security.

Here the report is equally unserious. It calls for beefing up the training of Iraqi forces and gradually removing U.S. combat forces from the fight, until their role is almost eliminated by early 2008. This would make conditions worse. We can train all the Iraqis we like, but the fact remains that we have the only security force in Iraq capable of tamping down the violence. We have failed to impose order partly because we haven't had enough combat forces to "clear" areas of insurgents and, then, to "hold" them to keep the insurgents from returning. The areas where we have maintained enough troops to clear and hold, such as Tal Afar and Fallujah, are relatively stable. Baghdad, where we have never had enough troops, continues to spin out of control.

The ISG is right to emphasize the importance of political reconciliation to ending the violence in Iraq. But without some check on the violence now, Iraq's politics will be further polarized, and reconciliation will be much harder. The Iraqi army we are trying to train will founder on sectarian divisions, and there will be no Iraq left to reconcile. Our combat troops, then, and any semblance of order they can provide, are key to a political solution. The irony is that the same people who hail the ISG can't stand outgoing defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has been offering essentially the same military advice as Baker/Hamilton for three years: Draw down U.S. forces to keep the Iraqis from becoming dependent on us and to force them to "pull up their socks."

Bush has already signaled his rejection of the major ISG recommendations. He needs to act decisively and as soon as possible, given that Iraq looks more like the 1990s Balkans every day. His most important task is to secure Baghdad, which will take more troops. Even the ISG report is open to "a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad." Stabilization would require as many as 50,000 more U.S. troops in the city--and probably require new commanders on the ground, too, since Generals Abizaid and Casey are so determinedly Rumsfeldian in their orientation, favoring a light "footprint" over classic counterinsurgency tactics.

A move to send more troops and replace those generals should be packaged with an increase in the size of the U.S. military, accelerated and expanded training of Iraqi security units, steps to get more Iraqis employed, and a greater U.S. intelligence effort on the ground in Iraq. (This last recommendation is included in the ISG report, and is one of many smaller ideas in it that are worth adopting.)

That the ISG failed in its mission is, in the scheme of things, inconsequential. That won't be true if Bush fails in his.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The next issue of NATIONAL REVIEW will appear on Jan. I2.