As expected, the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report — more commonly known as the Baker-Hamilton commission report — was announced last week with much fanfare in Washington and across the Arab world. Eagerly awaited, the report offers a number of recommendations for US policymakers who are desperately working to extract themselves from the increasingly disastrous quagmire in Iraq and recover diplomatic prestige which has steadily eroded since the fateful terrorist attacks on New York and Washington more than five years ago.
The ISG report includes food for thought for all parties involved in the Middle East: Renewed, rigorous diplomacy aimed at settling the Arab-Israeli conflict; calls for stabilizing the chaotic political impasse in Lebanon; lifting international isolation for Syria and Iran; and, of course, providing a framework which may enable the US to disengage from Iraq. In short, collectively the 79 recommendations made by the bipartisan panel of senior American statesmen provides ideas, if not a blueprint, for regional stability under the leadership, albeit not unilaterally, of the United States.
Theoretically, the ISG was created by Rep. Frank Wolf (Republican-Virginia) and other congressional leaders to provide much-needed guidance to members of Congress and the Bush Administration as to how to move forward. The ISG was intended to provide political cover to Republicans and Democrats alike on Iraq, the issue which not only has polarized the American electorate, but resulted in a political and intellectual stalemate in Washington. Neither the Bush Administration nor Congress has been able to come up with viable plans of their own which could alter the clearly unacceptable status quo.
Given the often contentious reactions to the ISG report, it would be easy to write the exercise off as another failure to break regional political gridlock — akin to the Road Map or Mitchell Commission. But while the plan proffered last week will almost certainly not be fully implemented, it clearly achieved the goal of changing the tone of debate. This could eventually lead to change on the ground in Iraq and increased stability in the region.
In Congress, Israel’s most ardent supporters predictably chafed at the notion that the Israeli-Palestinian issue has any bearing whatsoever on the regrettable US position in Iraq. “There is no basis to conclude that a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian problem is central to resolving Iraq. These two issues, both difficult to resolve, must not be artificially conflated,” suggested Rep. Tom Lantos (Democrat-California), the incoming chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
“The report embraces the idea that peace between Arabs and Israelis is a necessary element of success in Iraq...The linkage the ISG report makes between this issue and the violence in Iraq seems tenuous at best,” noted Sen. John McCain (Arizona), a leading contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
Many members of Congress were also cool to the idea of dialogue with Syria and Iran — nations they have worked in concert with the Bush Administration to isolate in recent years.
“We must be both cautious and realistic about what Iranian and Syrian participation is likely to achieve...if the price of their cooperation is an easing of pressure on Tehran over its nuclear ambitions, or on Damascus over the Syrian role in Lebanon, then that price is too high,” noted McCain. These comments reflect a central fear of the ISG. Both former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton repeatedly warned Congress and the White House that their recommendations must be taken in their entirety rather than piecemeal. Or, as the always quotable Baker suggested, they are not “fruit salad” to be selectively adopted based on short-term political calculations.
While the reaction from rank-and-file members of Congress, who have long taken their regional political cues from Israel and its well-entrenched lobbying network, is not immediately known, the most vocal, such as Lantos and McCain, have opted to look at Iraq through blinders.
It is accurate, as they emphasized, that Iraqi militiamen are not motivated to fight US forces because of Israel. But this fails to take into account that the long-term solution to the Iraqi imbroglio requires the assistance of the Arab and Islamic world, which will not fully engage vis-à-vis Baghdad unless there is progress on the other primary issue of concern, Palestine. There is little incentive for Egypt, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia — America’s primary Arab allies — to help with Iraq without the US working to resolve the Israel-Palestine problem. Indeed, as Baker noted in a recent interview, the road to Baghdad likely lies through Jerusalem.
Not all congressional reaction to the ISG report was as tepid as that given by Lantos and McCain. Democratic congressional leaders, who won power in the November elections thanks to the Iraq issue, have quickly embraced Baker-Hamilton. With Democrats united only in the need to alter course in Iraq, not in how to do so, the report provides a bipartisan blueprint for change. By embracing the report — and notably not endorsing specific recommendations — congressional Democrats put pressure on the White House. Democrats do not have to take ownership for the ISG report, nor any of its political “poison pills” such as Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
It is now up to the White House to oppose the plan, with the full knowledge that if they do so they will have to offer something else. The American public demanded change in November; even the notoriously stubborn President Bush is well aware of this fact.
— David Dumke is principal of the Washington-based MidAmr Group. He can be reached at: [email protected].
