The elephant gives birth to a mouse

[donsu]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL08Ak04.html


It is going to take time to make a full appraisal of all the annexes and content of the full Iraq Study Group (ISG) report, but the principal recommendations of the James Baker-Lee Hamilton Commission are very unlikely to produce success. The bipartisan report, presented to President George W Bush and the US Congress on Wednesday, does recognize that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating and that the current strategy is unworkable - but then so does virtually everyone else.

The key problem is that events may be spiraling out of control, and the key to success is not outside action but Iraqi action. As a result, the most important single sentence in the ISG's executive summary is its introductory caveat, "if the Iraqi government moves forward with national reconciliation".

-snip-

Simply calling for a weak and divided Iraqi government to act in the face of all of the forces tearing Iraq apart is almost feckless: it is a "triumph of hope over experience". Efforts to exhort Iraqis into reconciliation are hardly new; this has been a core political effort of the Bush administration since before last month's congressional elections, and one that dates back to at least the summer of 2005.

The only new twist is to call for the US to use threats and disincentives to pressure the Iraqi government to act decisively. Saying that the "United States must make it clear to the Iraqi government that the United States could carry out its plans, including planned redeployments, even if the Iraqi government did not implement their planned changes" borders on being irresponsible. It comes far too close to having the US threaten to take its ball and go home if the Iraqi children do not play the game the United States' way.

-long snip-
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article ends with:

This does not mean that there are not many good ideas and a great deal of useful and thoughtful material embedded in the main body of the report. But this is not a good or workable plan for the future.


Anthony Cordesman holds the Arleigh A Burke chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is non-partisan and non-proprietary. CSIS was a sponsoring organization of the Iraq Study Group.


whatever

letting the killing go on for another year is insanity and a crime

bring all the troops home now

empty the green zone and leave the gates open

remove Halliburton and it's subsidiaries from Iraq.

what will be, will be

[ellenfl]

1. i have not read the report yet. does it say anything about

the permanent bases?

ellen fl

[whistle]

2. That would be admitting defeat and Shrub*/Cheney taking the blame

....the Bush/Cheney crime families never admit defeat and never take the blame