EDITORIAL: "The Iraq Muddle Group," Wall Street Journal, 7 December 2006, p.A18.OP-ED: "No Way to Win a War," by Eliot Cohen, Wall Street Journal, 7 December 2006, p. A18.
WSJ and Cohen unimpressed with ISG and I must say that I am too.
The pullback argument is fine, but early 2008 doesn't exactly change anybody's debating points.
Wanting more advisers is good, but reports say this is already happening, so it basically ratifies something that perhaps the impending ISG report prompted, or maybe it would have happened anyway?
But that dynamic gets to the real purpose of such commissions, which is to provide political cover for changes truly worked out behind the scenes,and on what I consider to be the most important proposal here (the regional peace initiative and direct talks with Iran and Syria, both ideas being ridiculed here as essentially being too painful due to implied costs and perceived humiliation), but just the opposite seems to be the case here. Instead of providing cover for a serious change of course, Bush 43 seems to have suffered this public intervention by 41's minions only to appear that he's considered alternatives, when in reality it appears W. (and Cheney) have not. Otherwise Zellikow (and his 80 percent, or screw-the-Sunnis approach that I both support and have made myself going back to Feb 05) wouldn't be leaving..
The upshot?
Despite disavowing the tripartite path of acknowledging fake state Iraq is falling apart, that situation is indeed happening, quite probably with Maliki playing a very purposeful role on behalf of fellow Shiia. You can call it bad. You can pretend that "option" ain't on the table. But it's basically happening and if you don't want it to happen, you might want to take your lumps vis-a-vis Iran and Syria because ... buddy ... that's the price for screwing up Iraq.
Any hanging out the "regional war" bugaboo is similarly cynical: that's just the follow-on dynamic following the splitting-up of Iraq that we're letting happen because we screwed the postwar and now are being unrealistic about what results quite naturally from that failure.
In sum, I don't see W. changing course here. I think the Baker Commission was a complete charade, not in execution but in intent--primarily because the White House made it so.
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