I am not getting my hopes up that the ISG Report will get Bush 43 motivated to do anything that will lead to success in Iraq and the region. From David E. Sanger of the New York Times: Dueling Views on Diplomacy Pit Baker Against Rice. This article is a must read for its clues as to why we must talk with Syria and Iran. However, one day following the delivery of the Iraq Study Group Report, Bush has stated flatly that we will talk with neither Syria nor Iran.
The United States should engage Iran, Mr. Baker contended, if only to reveal its “rejectionist attitude”; it should try to “flip the Syrians”; and it should begin a renewed quest for peace between Israel and the Palestinians that, he maintained, would help convince Arab moderates that America was not all about invasions and regime change.
As to Baker’s and Bush’s diplomatic styles, Sanger quotes Dennis Ross:
“They start from completely different places,” said Dennis Ross, the Middle East negotiator who worked for Mr. Baker years ago and left the State Department early in the Bush administration. “Baker approaches everything with a negotiator’s mindset. That doesn’t mean every negotiation leads to a deal, but you engage your adversaries and use your leverage to change their behavior. This administration has never had a negotiator’s mind-set. It divides the world into friends and foes, and the foes are incorrigible and not redeemable. There has been more of an instinct toward regime change than to changing regime behavior.”
Absolutely true! When the neocons will accuse their own fellow Americans of being traitors and terrorists for disagreeing with the president or for asking the hard questions before the invasion, that’s hardcore fundamentalism at work. There is some kind of evil lurking in those people.
These two paragraphs are key to the depth of Baker’s wisdom, that sageness that one acquires in direct proportion to the amount of gray that one has in one’s hair. What a terrific panel.
CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante reports:
But this president may not be in much of a hurry to accept Baker’s ideas about that — or much else. Asked if Baker would help implement the report, a spokesman for Mr. Bush said, “Jim Baker can go back to his day job.”
This is worse than dumping cold water on this distinguished group that has travelled around the globe and spent almost a year of their lives in this service to their country. The President and the entire white House severely need of diplomacy lessons.
It’s too early to tell what effect the mentoring of the ISG Report will have on Bush 43, but sadly, I am not optimistic.
