that is the best way to describe the majority of the baker/hamilton commission (ISG) report. it is long on analysis, and short on workable solutions. full text here(pdf). the most delusional part of this report is the part where the authors insist that neighboring countries such as iran and syria really do want a stable iraq. not only that, but if the united states would just sit down with them and talk to them, they would be willing to help us with stabilizing iraq.

look at recommendation 12 for example. it says:

The United States and the Support Group should encourage and persuade Syria of the merit of such contributions as the following:

• Syria can control its border with Iraq to the maximum extent possible and work together with Iraqis on joint patrols on the border. Doing so will help stem the flow of funding, insurgents, and terrorists in and out of Iraq.
• Syria can establish hotlines to exchange information with the Iraqis.
• Syria can increase its political and economic cooperation with Iraq.

i can tell you without help from any commission how well this would work. concessions are only given when the opposition is in a position of strength, like the united states was after the initial invasion of iraq. that’s not where we are now.

even though the ISG acknowledges to some degree that iran is causing some of the instability, it still insists that iran could be persuaded to help us.

look at these recommendations:

RECOMMENDATION 10: The issue of Iran’s nuclear programs should continue to be dealt with by the United Nations Security Council and its five permanent members (i.e., the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China) plus Germany.

brilliant. great idea. more talking and listening, but no effective threats of punishments or sanctions. that will show mahmoud ahmadinejad who’s boss.

RECOMMENDATION 11: Diplomatic efforts within the Support Group should seek to persuade Iran that it should take specific steps to improve the situation in Iraq.
Among steps Iran could usefully take are the following:
• Iran should stem the flow of equipment, technology, and training to any group resorting to violence in Iraq.
• Iran should make clear its support for the territorial integrity of Iraq as a unified state, as well as its respect for the sovereignty of Iraq and its government.
• Iran can use its influence, especially over Shia groups in Iraq, to encourage national reconciliation.
• Iran can also, in the right circumstances, help in the economic reconstruction of Iraq.

again, what does iran get out of the deal? concessions from the rest of the international community? acceptance of its nuclear ambitions? there would be a heavy price to be paid by the rest of the world to get iran’s help with iraq. the same is true with syria.

do we want to do what it would require to get the help of these two countries? that would be very unwise. it is a game we can’t afford to play. surrender is never is a good solution.

related:

Half Baked – NRO editorial
Blogging the Release of the Baker Commission Report’s Recommendations– vital perspective (h/t atlas)
Asking for chaos –frederick kagan (nydn)
Grading the Report— dean barnett (townhall)

tags: ISG, iran, iraq, syria

we’ve got mail…and it’s from our good friend the president of iran. wonkette provides a snarky interpretation here.

mahmoud ahmadinejad is underestimating the average american. we can tell the difference between what he’s doing, and what our own government is doing. have we made mistakes? of course we have, but we are able to debate issues freely without fear of being jailed for our beliefs. if we believe that a change of political leadership is needed, we decide that at the ballot box rather than resorting to violence and explosives. he has no moral authority to judge us until he starts giving some of those same freedoms to his own people. somehow i don’t see that happening.

msnbc.com has requested that we the people respond to his letter, so here’s what i have to say:

mr. president:

i’m not a diplomat. i don’t work for the United States government. i am just an average american, so i guess your letter was directed to folks like me. what a mistake that was. i see you for the threat to the safety and security of the united states and our allies that you are. whether we agree with the iraq project or not, i would say that most of us still don’t want to lose, and we definitely don’t believe that you have the best intentions of iraq in mind when proposing negotiations.

you don’t fool us. you may have charmed the drive-by media and the liberal talking heads in the US and elsewhere, but we know that we can’t trust you. words are just words, no matter how pretty they look on paper. you are asking us as americans to take you seriously as someone we can negotiate with in good faith.

sorry…mahmoud…find another sucker. the american people don’t buy your lies, and the administration shouldn’t either. stop wasting our time with your beautifully-written drivel. it’s not working.

other msnbc commenters were not nearly as polite, but i’m not going to link to them. we need the bush administration to take the same line the american people are taking with this guy. i hope that they will.

tags: iran, mahmoud ahmadinejad, iraq

andrew cline in the american spectator:

Generals often make the mistake of fighting the last war. On Iraq, Democrats are doing exactly that. They just cannot get past Vietnam. Someone might want to remind them of two important lessons of Vietnam they seem to have forgotten: 1) In the absence of U.S. troops, the Communists slaughter of innocents continued unchecked; 2) Our retreat taught the world what the North Vietnamese already knew: To defeat the United States you don’t have to win a single battle, you just have to kill enough Americans to turn public opinion against the war.

The irony is that only if Democrats have their way and U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq before the mission is complete will Iraq be another Vietnam.

we lost in vietnam. we didn’t consider the consequences of withdrawing our troops from vietnam and surrendering to our enemies in this war. public opinion changed the course of this war. we thought that vietnam was unwinnable, just like iraq seems to be. the situation couldn’t possibly have gotten any worse there than what the american people were seeing on the evening news. then we left vietnam to destroy itself and learned a painful lesson for our efforts there. we weren’t defeated because our military couldn’t do the job. we were defeated because we lost the will to fight the battles necessary to win that war.

we are learning the wrong lessons from vietnam. iraq won’t become more stable if we pull our troops out tomorrow. it could get much worse than it is now. the insurgents believe that we are close to giving up on iraq. the results of the election might point them in that direction. the increased violence certainly doesn’t hurt their attempts to make that case to the american people. that said, i still think that we want iraq to succeed, even though most of us are not convinced that the bush administration had the best plan to do that.

nibras kazimi, hudson institute, writes:

There are legitimate concerns over where things stand in Iraq. Those who are genuinely worried about the welfare of the Iraqi people as well as about America’s long-term interests should be commended for fretting over what is a fatefully decisive issue. However, these anxieties are being preyed upon and manipulated by dark and cynical forces whose affirmed goal, from the very beginning, was to declare the democratic experiment in Iraq a “failure.” Within Iraq, the jihadists and Baathists are among these forces, joined by the intelligence services and news bureaus of regional state actors such as Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Inside Washington, these forces include some who are in the pay of the Saudis, and bureaucrats safeguarding their careers. Coming in third are those who would rather win local congressional elections than a very serious battle in Baghdad.

there are serious consequences to losing iraq, just as there were serious consequences to losing vietnam. that’s why we need to find a resolution to this conflict that will stabilize iraq before we start withdrawing our troops.

tags: iraq, vietnam, war on terror

victor davis hanson:

…So we are at a crossroads of all places in Iraq. The war there has metamorphosized from a successful effort to remove a mass-murdering dictator into the frontlines of the entire struggle between Islamic radicalism and Western liberality. If we withdraw before the elected government stabilizes, the consequences won’t just be the loss of the perceptions of power, but perhaps the loss of real power. What follows won’t be the impression that we are weak, but the fact that we are–as we convince ourselves we cannot win against such horrific enemies, and so should never again try.

That stumble will send a shudder throughout the so-called West that will be felt worldwide. It will insidiously show that the premodern world proved the master of the postmodern, as al Qaeda’s Alfred Rosenberg, the pudgy Dr. Zawahiri, boasted all along–whose followers will not be happy with a successful defense when they think they can go back on an even more successful offense.

In the end, the Islamicists’ best way to blow up the world’s Starbucks or to turn off freewheeling American television is ultimately with a whimper, not a bang. They need not plant a hundred thousand bombs across the Westernized globe, but simply to cauterize its very spinal cord in the United States–the willingness of the American public, as in the past, to confront only the latest challenge to their freedom and all the ripples from it.

read it all here.