Report: Baker Commission split, feuding
posted at 3:51 pm on November 24, 2006 by Allahpundit
Every other debate about the war is politically polarized. Why shouldn’t theirs be too?
A source who spoke recently to a leader of the Iraq Study Group said he complained bitterly about internal dissension and partisanship among members of the supposedly bipartisan group, and was worried about reaching consensus on the key issues…
Baker and Hamilton have made it clear they favor a U.S. dialogue with Iraq’s neighbors, particularly Iran and Syria, as one way out of the Iraq crisis. This thinking reflects hopes that Iran could use its strong influence on Iraqi Shia and Syria its control over Iraq’s most porous border to alleviate insurrection against the U.S. occupation and the fighting between Shia and Sunnis…
Another Iraq expert who advised the Baker group said there “has been a lot of fighting” among the expert advisers to the group, mainly between neoconservatives and more conventional “cold warriors” who want to take a more pragmatic approach to the Middle East.
Captain Ed says the problem with the Baker approach is that Iran and Syria have no reason to want to help us. He’s half right; the other half of it is that, after yesterday’s mega-attack in Sadr City, they might not be able to help us even if they wanted to. Tony Karon in Time:
[E]ven though Iran traditionally wields greater influence over the Shi’ite parties that dominate Iraq’s government, it may have little to offer in the immediate crisis of sectarian escalation. Likewise Syria, whose contribution would be largely to tighten border security to prevent the trickle of foreign jihadists into the territory of its neighbor, may not be able to effect events on the ground as much it might like to think.
Iraq, after all, is already awash with weapons and fighters. And even the extent to which the Shi’ite political leadership is able to restrain the militias on the streets is an open question. Despite the best efforts of various, contending regional powers to shape events in Iraq, the escalating violence puts the momentum in the hands of Iraq’s own contending factions. And their prospects for agreeing to a formula that can reverse the slide into full-scale civil war are not bright.
Meanwhile, the New York Sun reports that Carl Levin will likely be the first one out of the chute in the subpoena jamboree and that Bush will respond by claiming executive privilege, thereby setting the stage for another decisive judicial masterstroke from legal genius Anthony Kennedy.
Blowback
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*claps loudly*
I hope this means gridlock and scuttlesville for a report that appears to be on the way to recommending tactics that will ensure our defeat. I mean, calling for “U.S. dialogue with Iraq’s neighbors”…?
After what has happened recently in Lebanon, I think time for talking is over.
RushBaby on November 24, 2006 at 4:14 PM
This is getting frightening. While all of the jackass politicians in this country are fighting amongst themselves like spoiled brat children, our enemies are joining forces, arming themselves and preparing for our demise. Democracy is a noble ideal but when it results in the gaggle of idiots we have produced perhaps it’s time to try some other approach.
rplat on November 24, 2006 at 4:45 PM
The Baker Group is a classic example of a commission that is obselete and ilrelevant even before it makes recommendations. There is no way we can negotiate with Syria after it sponsored the murder of yet another prominent opponent in Lebanon in a direct challenge to us, and Iran could not do any thing for us even if it were inclined to help us. Furthermore, our interests are diametrically opposed to those of both countries.
We cannot leave under any circumstances that would indicate defeat for us as our enemies around the world would then smell blood and go after us everywhere. The administration must decide what is worth protecting in Iraq, i.e., the oil fields and refineries and pipelines, the Kurds, the porous borders from infiltration of men and arms, and those in Iraq who have supported us. It must then draw up a strategy to protect these assets. If the government gives us carte blanche to destroy the militia groups, we must do so; otherwise we must withdraw our support for it and concentrate on protecting the assets. If Shiites and Sunnis are intent on killing each other, so be it.
ptolemy on November 24, 2006 at 4:58 PM
Bush should have foreseen this. Didn’t he have a plan to keep the peace within the Baker commission?
see-dubya on November 24, 2006 at 5:07 PM
W.T.F? I don’t even know what this is supposed to mean.
If Iran and Syria were to be asked for help it would be a request that they get uninvolved, not more involved. The idea isn’t that they use their influence for good so much as they stop using it for evil. Syria needs to stop allowing jihadi’s and Baathists to organize the Sunni insurgency in Syria. Iran needs to stop funding, training, and arming the Shi’ite militias. And both need to close their borders to all but the most urgent traffic for about two months. None of this matters because Bush isn’t going to make a deal with either of these regimes. He’ll stick it out as he has been and put his faith in Iraqi politicians figuring out that they need to work together or see their country destroyed.
By the way, Sadr just overplayed his hand yesterday. He said he’d quit the cabinet and boycott parliament if Maliki meets with Bush in Jordan. The meeting’s going ahead anyway. If he really quits that may be the opening Maliki needs to turn on him. We’ll see.
The Apologist on November 24, 2006 at 5:11 PM
The 9/11 Commission…the Baker Commission…and brigades of worthless pols eager to implement the “findings” as marching orders of these political putrid coteries of unelected political insiders. So much for elected officials taking responsibility for their actions.
Just get George Mitchell, James Baker, maybe even Jimmy Carter out of mothballs to survey the problem and given you their “bipartsian” echelons above oxygen, Olympian views on how to proceed. Have a sticky problem? Dodge the call for leadership and trot out some idle Establishment solon to “investigate” and pronounce on it gravely, making no actual decision whatever.
Have them publish “findings” to which they won’t themselves be held, making sure beforehand to stack the deck with “non-partisan” partisan activists like Jamie Gorelick, and a few cigar-store Indians like Lee Hamilton to add to the gravitas.
These “commissions” are rather like going to the scrapyard and museum berths nationally to assemble a fleet around the USS Olympia, including the USS Missouri, the USS Monitor, Old Ironsides, and the Pueblo to find out why the Cole was struck. One of the Democratic ships will be sure to act like the Yamato Battle Group and send kamakazis off into the press to leak and throw bomblets.
This is an abnegation of leadership.
In wartime, that smacks of treason. Both the Executive and the Legislative branches, mutually antagonistic based upon their soaring arrogance, egged on by a monumentally egotistical and self-righteous press, are parties to it.
Puritan1648 on November 24, 2006 at 6:20 PM
It means I accept rplat’s recommendation that I be appointed dictator perpetuus until the end of the war on islamofascism….
First order of business, free brownies for everyone! Secondly I order the opening of the sooper sekrit Rove detention camps for “Dissenting-Americans.”
My motto will be “Let the chill winds blow.”
ScottG on November 24, 2006 at 6:20 PM
what a bunch of dumbass nincompoops! How about they untie our soldiers arms so they can actually fight and lay waste to enemies. We are looked at as week and pathetic, that is why we get shit from other countries. If/when we kicked real ass, there woulod be noone saying or doing a damened thing to US citizens.
retired on November 24, 2006 at 6:55 PM
…so, instead of stepping up and displaying the leadership and acumen for which they’re being paid and feted, we ask them to surrender *MORE* of the mandate we’ve foolishly given many of them to some uber-pol?
The cool thing about democracy is that if you make a bad decision, you can correct it and make another. Recall the b*stards. Make their lives Hell. Make ‘em produce. If we don’t, we have only ourselves to blame.
Puritan1648 on November 24, 2006 at 6:59 PM
The only reason to enact the Baker commission findings is because the Dems came to power with no new ideas of their own. Years of political haggling over who has the best Bush-is-an-idiot joke has produced a party with a huge and serious problem at its doorstep – and without any clue as to how it can be resolved. Now, instead of pooling any serious ideas together, they can implement a plan produced by a group led by the likes of Baker – for whom the original blame of this problem can be handed to. The Baker commission report was irrelevant before it was even released. Now, the Dems can enact it and it’s someone else’s fault when (not if) it fails.
thedecider on November 24, 2006 at 7:29 PM
Our Iraq situation stems from the fatal flaw of half a conquest from after the time bombing stopped.
We just didn’t dare offend the neighbors and we had to make kissy face with coalition demanders.
Disarming a nation like Iraq is a big tough job that never got started.
Because underwhelming force was the troop level goal. The nation of Iraq never had a chance to live in peace and hasn’t anytime since shock and awe plus green zone started.
During the German and Japanese occupation, GIs could at least walk the streets or drive the roads.
Fear of death among members of our conquering army just to walk the streets or drive should be a clue that perhaps not quite enough conquering had taken place.
As much as I respect Dr Kissinger and even more regret that James Baker was not the President in place of George the first.
I’m afraid that unless the Baker commission has something magical, like a time machine. The answers they come up with won’t be easy to swallow.
Speakup on November 25, 2006 at 12:29 AM
That’s because no one dared. Today’s military is faced with “political correctness” and “winning hearts and minds” – two silly and counter-productive concepts that no one respects and should never have seen the light of day. Shoot the damn insurgents on the spot! The reason the insurgents target so many Iraqi citizens today is because they can’t get at the military as often as they would like, or, they fear the retaliation – albeit not as the Germans and Japanese did during WWII.
thedecider on November 25, 2006 at 12:50 AM
ScottG may have been joking, but the Romans were not stupid. Six months with the president granted full power as dictator and we would be a lot closer to a solution. Six months with the kidd gloves off, the media muzzled, maybe even suspend habeus corpus and let them bitch and carp afterwards. Only question is, would the president do the right thing? At the beginning, I believe he would. Now? Then there would have to be some kind of legal immunity, or the subpoenas would fly. And some kind of way to redress those innocently harmed through gross abuse… Ah, Hell, Sulla proved that doesn’t work. And then Caeser put the final nail in the coffin. The Romans may not have been stupid, but it appears that neither were our founding fathers!
Let’s not give up on our Republic just yet. Yes, PC is a rot that eats at the very fabric of our culture. But remember, we are partisan because we can afford to be! There have been no strikes on our shores since 9/11, the casualty lists are ridiculously low, and our part in the war doesn’t even make the front page anymore (barring aberrations like Haditha and Hamdaniyah. God be with those Marines). For too many Americans, this won’t be real until they have their noses rubbed in it. It is an ugly, ugly truth, but until the fight is brought home, there’s not a whole lot we can do.
When it is inevitably brought home, we need to get some honest to God straight shooters and take the fight back with no holds barred. I wish, from time to time, that we were not so reactive, but it’s what makes us who we are. We will try everything else first, and then go for the jugular. President Bush is not our Churchill, much though I wish he were. He is still a good man, but a good man hampered by dissension and defeat at home and haunted what might have been. I only hope he either throws off his lethargy (amnesty, anyone?) and does what is best for this country before the curtain comes down or the blood really starts flowing. Beyond him, we must simply pray the the public wakes up. Woe to us if we do not.
Militant Bibliophile on November 25, 2006 at 1:36 AM
It was reported by the liberal media, over a month ago, that the Baker Commission Report was a done deal. I’m outraged!
DannoJyd on November 25, 2006 at 2:36 PM