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Iraq Study Group: How it Started

November 29, 2006, 2:01PM

With all the attention on the ISG now I was interested to read how it started since I didn't notice it at the time. The Christian Science Monitor starts off:

Rep. Frank Wolf (R) of Virginia has traveled to the most difficult war and civil war zones on the planet - from Chechnya and Bosnia to Sudan and Algeria. He had visited Iraq twice before, both times without a military escort. On his third visit, in September 2005, he had an epiphany.
He was about to tour a maternity ward in Tikrit when armed security guards were called in. Noting the mothers' and nurses' reaction, he recalls, "I said: 'We've got to get out of here. We can't walk through a maternity ward with guns like this scaring people." He concluded then that the US needed "fresh eyes" on its Iraq involvement.
From that small beginning has sprung one of the most-anticipated blue-ribbon commissions in recent years - the Iraq Study Group, which began deliberating over final conclusions this week.
How an obscure panel became a policy touchstone for Republicans and Democrats is a story in itself. More important, it illustrates those rare moments when a crisis reaches such a point that official Washington temporarily loosens hold of the reins. It's in those moments that experienced outside voices - think the 9/11 and Warren commissions - can make themselves heard. The Iraq panel, in particular, may prove particularly influential because of the escalating chaos in Iraq.

It is well worth reading the rest.

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Thanks.

I think whether intentional or not, the "threat" of their "forthcoming" is causing a lot of stuff to happen.

This morning's A1 headline of the NY Times was a mysterious leak, by a "senior administration official" of an NSC memo in which the reporter, a senior military affairs specialist, was allowed to transcribe the memo, which outlines the problems with Mailiki:

Bush Adviser’s Memo Cites Doubts About Iraqi Leader
By MICHAEL R. GORDON.

with this analysis just below to accompany, including the Baghdad bureau chief:

NEWS ANALYSIS; Deeper Crisis, Less U.S. Sway in Iraq
By JOHN F. BURNS and KIRK SEMPLE

Then we get this only a few hours later, surprise, surprise:

Bush-Maliki Talks Are Postponed
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Reporting for this article was contributed by Edward Wong from Baghdad, Christine Hauser from New York, and Hassan M. Fattah from Amman, Jordan.

Meanwhile for today's print edition, Hassan M. Fattah filed this, inside, on the follow-up Iraq pages

In Amman Enemies, and Allies, Await Bush

By HASSAN M. FATTAH

AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 28...

....“I am here to make sure the mistakes of the past are not repeated,” said Sheik Dhari al-Jirba, of the Iraqi Shummar tribe, who sat in his hotel suite nervously pondering what strategy for Iraq would be pursued.

“We keep hearing they want to bring Iran in, but Iran will come with conditions,” he said. “We don’t want Iran’s conditions to be met at the cost of Iraq and its Sunni neighbors. That is our great fear.”

Mr. Jirba said he planned to meet with Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Iraq, and hoped he would have an audience with the president himself. His first demand, he said, would be to say “no” to Iran.

A draft report by an American bipartisan commission studying new strategies for Iraq urges the United States to open direct talks with Iran and Syria, according to American officials who have seen all or part of the document.

On Monday, the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, said in Iran that his country needed Iran’s help for peace.

The United States wants moderate Arab governments like those of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to help drive a wedge between Mr. Maliki and Moktada al-Sadr....

Yet for many, the possibility of involving Iran, whether it has a nuclear bomb or not, is a central concern. Many analysts said it would amount to a loss of face for the Arabs and a striking advantage to Iran.

“The one thing scarier to these guys than a powerful Iran is an American deal with Iran,” said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director at the International Crisis Group. “That would ratify Iran’s dominant position in the Persian Gulf. Iran wants to underscore it is the pre-eminent power in the region, and the U.S. would hand them that.”

Despite growing anti-Americanism, Arab governments want to maintain an American presence in the region, fearing Iran would step in where the United States retreated. But a shift on Iran and Syria has caught many by surprise, as the Bush administration goes from “calling them the axis of evil, to considering them as an important element,” Emad Gad, a researcher at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said last week.

“The security and stability of the Persian Gulf cannot endure a shaken U.S. image,” Mr. Gad said. “When the big bodyguard leaves, they will have to succumb to the little bodyguard, and Iran has military power and has Shiites who could cause problems.”

In the Amman suburb of Ruseifa, Abu Mutasim, who said he was a jihadi and would give only his nickname, greeted a possible American opening with Iran with optimism.

“Iran is the source of all the problems in the Middle East, and now they want to create problems here,” he said. “But including them would only be in the interest of the jihadis, because Iraq’s Sunnis would quickly shift to Al Qaeda. This would ultimately be in our interests, not against it.”

and THEN this evening we get this news!:

Iran’s Leader Urges Americans to Reject Bush Policies
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN 7:25 PM ET

Iran’s president told the American people that he was certain they detested President Bush’s policies and he offered to work with them to reverse those policies.

Text: Letter to the American People

What an amazing frigging multi-party chess game going on.

Posted by artappraiser
November 29, 2006 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink

I had not thought of it as a grand campaign, I had been looking at the pieces. I wonder who is planning it? I see Josh Bolten since I think the content is beyond Rove and Bolten supposedly pushed him out of policy. If it is Bolten maybe this all signals the start of a strategic shift. If Bolten, or whoever, is doing this then they are taking on Cheney and I will cheer for the effort alone.

Great Jordanian article.

I find the Iranian President's letter very interesting as politics, as theater and as an insight into a culture that expresses thoughts so differently than the world I live in. Somehow this had more of an impression on me than the long letter and some speeches.

An aside, it is sad to have a UN ambassador who yesterday said he had not read the letter and then said well at least 5 pages is an improvement over 18!. Beyond ignorant and impolite. Without purpose.

And Zelikow wants to leave his job as Rice's counselor? If he is the master strategist, a lonely role in this administration, this chould be grand master level chess. From Steve Clemons

Posted by irishkg
November 30, 2006 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink

A good analysis of the Hadley memo's points:

Experts question proposals in leaked Iraq memo
By Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A.Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to implement most of the key ideas for quelling the Iraqi civil war that are outlined in a classified Nov. 8 memo to President Bush from National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, experts said Wednesday.

This Administration suffers from too many who do not have the practical experience of what works in the real world of governing and politics.

Posted by irishkg
November 30, 2006 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink

When the decider is Bush the ISG cannot counter this. From Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey in Newsweek:

So how long will it take to complete the mission in Iraq? Bush gave a historical analogy in the same speech in Riga. He told the story of the bleak, early years of the cold war, when the Soviets annexed the Baltic countries, when Czechoslovakia fell to communism, when Berlin was blockaded and the U.S.S.R. detonated its first nuke. Within six years of victory over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, the Korean war had begun, China was a communist state and the outlook looked dreadful across Europe.
As he neared the end of his speech, Bush choked up with emotion. He was telling the story of the Latvian president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who escaped the Red Army and spent some years in Morocco. There, he said, she learned that Muslims—just like those living under communism—wanted “a future of peace, a chance to live in freedom, and the opportunity to build a better life.” Now, he noted, she was a leader in the mold of Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady of the Baltics.” This is the kind of simple, homespun story that Bush finds inspiring enough to ride out the critics, the naysayers and the pundits—even the critics inside the Pentagon—and stick with his mission in Iraq.
Back in 2000, Bush’s senior aides used to say that pundits spent too much time parsing Bush’s words. Instead of looking for hidden meanings and ulterior motives, reporters should take him at face value, they said. As he reviews his Iraq policy, Bush’s face is an open book. He has no intention of leaving Iraq, or abandoning its prime minister. Naive or not, Bush still hopes that Maliki may yet grow into an Iron Man of the Middle East.

Posted by irishkg
November 30, 2006 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink

Love this commentary on the ISG's chair Jim Baker as Wise Man or wannabe:

JAMES A. BAKER III has one great goal left as he hones his legacy: trying to make sure that the words "American statesman" appear in his newspaper obituary before the words "Florida recount." That's one reason he's so eager to make the findings of the Iraq Study Group, which he co-chairs, sagacious and bipartisan enough to ensconce him firmly in the pantheon of American "Wise Men."

And author Walter Isaacson ends:

...In our search for contemporary Wise Men, there is one irony that the builders of the original Pantheon would have noted. The closest person we have to a true Wise Man is someone who should be the easiest for the president to tap but, for reasons that only Sophocles or Shakespeare (or perhaps Freud) could explain, is actually the hardest: President Bush the elder.

He was a great realist who choreographed the end of the Cold War and the prudent execution of the first Gulf War. In lieu of him, his consigliere, James Baker, will have to serve as proxy. Fortunately, he is eager to don the mantle.

Posted by irishkg
December 4, 2006 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink

Iraq Study Group: How it Started

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