People are still talking about the Iraq Study Group report (but will they in a month from now?)

1. Iraq’s Biggest Failing: There Is No Iraq -- by ROGER COHEN/NY Times

WAR spews words. They make up its fog. Washington was awash in them last week as the damage control exercise called the Iraq Study Group culminated with a proposal to extract all American combat brigades by early 2008, leaving a few tens of thousands of troops to train the Iraqi Army or protect the trainers. As befits a bipartisan report on what looks like a lose-lose situation, it was a fudge.

But beyond the words — from President Bush’s chagrin at “the pace of success” to the report’s “grave and deteriorating” situation — lie people, the millions of Iraqis who have to get their kids up in the morning, those dimly discernible objects of the myriad political contortions. One of them, a 32-year-old Iraqi engineer encountered earlier this year in Baghdad, had this to say in a desperate e-mail message:

“I am facing the most difficult times of my life here in Baghdad. Since I am a Sunni, I became a target to be killed. You know that our army and police are Shia, so every checkpoint represents a serious threat to Sunnis. During the last three weeks, two of my friends were killed at check points belonging to the police. They first asked to show IDs and when they saw the Sunni family name, they killed them.”

There, in plain enough English, you have it. The Iraqi Army and police whose proposed reinforcement lies at the center of the Iraq Study Group’s plan for American extraction are often less neutral institutions supporting the nation than a flimsy camouflage for Shia to settle accounts with Sunnis, while the Kurds bide their time and hope the child of chaos will be an independent Kurdistan.

The Iraqi Army and police are indeed overwhelmingly — but not exclusively — Shia. Most recruitment took place at a time when Sunnis had opted out of the new Iraq. Much has been made of the American error in disbanding Saddam Hussein ’s army. More might have been made of the errors committed in creating the new force.

Contacted in Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, who commands American forces in Iraq, described the Iraqi Army as “fragile.” He said Sunni officers and soldiers “have to believe the government is using force in a fair and evenhanded manner.” As for the police, he said, “it is clear there are some sectarian elements,” but “forceful action” by the Interior Ministry was now addressing the problem.

Are these the bulwarks of an Iraq that can “govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself” within 15 months, letting the bulk of American troops go home? Perhaps, the report seems to say, as it urges Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to get with the program — through rapid provincial elections, fairer distribution of oil revenue, the reintegration of Baathists and constitutional reform.

But it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the report treats Iraq as an existing country needing a quick fix in the name of resurgent American realism, rather than a still-to-be-born country that needs to be ushered into being in the name of American idealism.

Iraq, in short, needs Iraqis — citizens of a nation rather than of a tribe — and that, after decades of disorienting dictatorship, is a generational undertaking scarcely amenable to American electoral timetables.

Right now, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds see “freedom” more as the opportunity to be free of one another than to forge a liberal democracy. That’s how subjugated peoples, from the Soviet Union to Yugoslavia, tend to react to the lifting of tyranny. Iraqi behavior is not especially strange.

But it has been hugely destructive — an estimated 3,000 Iraqi civilians are dying every month — and it presents President Bush with a choice between the stick-with-it idealism that has been the mainstay of his narrative of Iraqi freedom catalyzing a Middle Eastern transformation, and the ease-out realism thrust in his face by his father’s secretary of state, James A. Baker III .

“The report is a devastating critique and an official certification of a failed policy, but its recommendations are a weak compromise,” said Richard Holbrooke , the former United States ambassador to the United Nations . “So the question remains: what will the president do? Most people want an exit timetable, a few want a troop increase and Bush appears unready for either. He seems likely to pass this mess on to his successor.”

Certainly Mr. Bush’s instincts, and his post-report language, suggest he will not embrace a 15-month timetable for large-scale withdrawal, even as a figure weakened by his party’s midterm electoral defeat. The realists, and the angry left, would then be further incensed. There’s no doubt that the administration’s ideology and scant planning, sold as idealism, have done great damage in Iraq. But realism too has its limits.

It was realism, Mr. Baker would say, that made him urge Yugoslavia to stick together days before its disintegration, and realism that later led him to wave away the Balkans with the lapidary phrase: “We don’t have a dog in that fight.” That was before the avenging dog of Bosnian mass killing finally outraged American moral principles and drew the country in.

The fact is Iraq was unmade while Mr. Baker was back in Texas, unmade in pursuit of a new Middle Eastern beginning. A state that had known only despotic rule, inhabited by disoriented victims of terror, was asked to govern itself through some form of democracy.

Remaking the unmade, in this case the fragmenting state of Iraq, is time-consuming, and, as Miroslav Hroch, the Czech political theorist, has observed, ethnic or religious nationalism easily becomes the “substitute for factors of integration in a disintegrating society.”

Adel is the name of the young engineer who has been writing to me; to give his full name would put his life and that of his family at risk. He knows all about the death of the old Iraq and the agony of the new.

In 2004 he got a job with Washington Group International, a building contractor.

“Now,” he writes, “I am working at a WGI site and live there because it is safe inside but when I go to my home the danger surrounds me. The police sometimes search the houses, and now the Shia militia force the Sunnis to leave their houses. The majority of the area is Shia. They want it to be completely Shia.”

He concedes that the same abuses “took place in the Sunni areas too.” But, he says, “the Sunnis are 20 percent only while the Shia are 70 percent and the police and army are Shia, so they are able to carry weapons officially.”

The study group lists all sorts of things the Iraqi Army lacks — leadership, equipment, personnel, logistical support. But it does not identify the most fundamental: absence of sufficient belief in the nation.

It seems highly improbable that this can be forged in 15 months. An American officer, Col. Mark Meadows, told me earlier this year in Baghdad that the Iraqi brigade he was training was overwhelmingly Shia, which was a problem.

“They’re where we were in early World War II,” Colonel Meadows said. “We went from the black-only units of that time to Truman’s integrated Army of the 1950s. The Army led the way in the breakthrough from a divided society. That has to happen here, too.”

But, the colonel added, “If we try to go too fast, if we take a short-sighted view, if we expect instant gratification, it won’t work.”

As for the police, it is, in the view of General Chiarelli, in far worse shape than the army. “The year of the police,” as 2006 was billed, has turned into the year of police abuse. The report suggests transferring a large part of the police from the Interior Ministry control to the Defense Ministry to improve discipline.

Quite what that would achieve is unclear. Both ministries have been infested with sectarianism and corruption. The Interior Ministry is now led by a Shiite, Defense by a Sunni, but both forces, police and military are still overwhelmingly Shiite, which is where the fundamental difficulty lies.

Adel, as a Sunni, has suffered directly from that. Now, even as he seeks ways to leave, he believes “that we are not completely lost.”

“If the invasion was the only solution to make Saddam quit,” he writes, “so it was the right choice.”

The problem, he adds, is “not with the invasion itself” but with “how to select the suitable men to take the responsibility of ruling Iraq, because most of those we have now are not devoted to this country.”

Iraq has to survive, not because it’s lovely, or within sight of peace, but because it’s the least bad solution. Its breakup would entail unfathomable horror: one quarter of the population is in mixed Baghdad, and Sunni Anbar province is an oil-free desert suitable only for Al Qaeda central. To have a future, Iraq almost certainly needs a broad federalism of a kind not endorsed in the report, and it needs the likes of Adel.

He’s scared, but not without a frail hope: the hope that Iraq can inspire love of itself in its citizens, beyond religious and ethnic lines. To that lingering aspiration, after the loss of almost 3,000 American lives and the spending of $400 billion in treasure, the United States appears to have an enduring responsibility.


2. Time to Offshore Our Troops -- by EUGENE GHOLZ, DARYL G. PRESS and BENJAMIN VALENTINO/NY Times

THE Iraq Study Group’s recommendation that the United States withdraw its combat forces from Iraq reflects a growing national consensus that our military cannot quell the violence there and may even be making matters worse. Although many are hailing this recommendation as a bold new course, it is not bold enough. America will best serve its interests in the Persian Gulf by withdrawing its ground-based military forces not only from Iraq, but from the entire region.

Critics of the report continue to debate the wisdom and details of a drawdown in Iraq, but there has been no debate about America’s broader strategy in the gulf. Policymakers and analysts from across the political spectrum assume that the United States must maintain a robust military presence there.

The bipartisan authors of the report, for example, advocate maintaining “a considerable military presence in the region” including “powerful air, ground and naval deployments in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar” even after the last American combat troops leave Iraq. Others — including Donald Rumsfeld and Hillary Clinton — go further and consider strengthening our forces around the gulf by shifting some troops from Iraq to neighboring countries.

Maintaining a large military presence in the region has been the cornerstone of American policy since the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and remains so today. With the Iraq war, we now have tens of thousands of troops elsewhere in the neighborhood.

But this strategy is flawed. In fact, many of the same considerations that led the Iraq Study Group to call for withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq suggest that the United States should withdraw its troops from neighboring states as well — leaving only naval forces offshore in international waters. As in Iraq, a large United States military footprint on the ground undermines American interests more than it protects them.

Just as our troops on Iraqi streets have provided a rallying point for the insurgency, the United States military presence throughout the region has been a key element in Al Qaeda’s recruitment campaign and propaganda. If America withdrew from Iraq but left behind substantial forces in neighboring states, Al Qaeda would refocus its attacks on American troops in those countries — remember the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia?

Worse, the continued presence of our military personnel across the region will continue to incite extremists to attack American cities. Osama bin Ladin repeatedly stated that the presence of American forces on the holy ground of the Arabian Peninsula was a primary reason for 9/11.

Our presence also destabilizes our important regional allies. Not only do American bases make these countries a target for terrorists, but many of their citizens bristle at the sight of United States bases on their soil. Indeed, the most serious near-term threat to our energy interests is the overthrow of friendly governments by domestic Islamic extremists, a danger that is increased by the presence of our troops.

The good news is that the United States does not need to station military forces on the ground in Persian Gulf countries to protect its allies or to secure its vital oil interests. For nearly 30 years, Pentagon planners have focused on two principal threats in the gulf: the conquest of major oil reserves (by the Soviet Union or a regional power like Iraq or Iran) and interference with shipping through Persian Gulf waters, particularly through the Strait of Hormuz. Forces stationed “over the horizon” — afloat in the Indian Ocean and at bases outside the Middle East — can address both threats.

By maintaining a strong naval presence in the Indian Ocean, along with some naval forces in the international waters of the Persian Gulf itself, the United States would be able to thwart an invasion of any gulf oil producer. Long-range American aircraft stationed at Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, could contribute as well. Should more substantial threats arise, those air and naval forces would buy time for ground forces and land-based aircraft to return to bases in the region.

This is the same strategy that the United States used to defend the Persian Gulf during the later years of the cold war. It would be even more effective now. Today’s adversaries have considerably less offensive military power than 15 years ago: the Soviet Union is gone; two wars with the United States have destroyed Iraq’s offensive capacity; and Iran’s poorly trained and ill-equippedground forces have grown even more obsolete.

While the threats have withered, new technology has vastly increased American military capabilities. Today, aircraft carrier strike groups can carry hundreds of precision land-attack cruise missiles in addition to their complement of aircraft (which also drop precision weapons). And long-range Air Force bombers are now far more lethal against ground targets, particularly targets advancing across highways and open desert.

Yes, there are limits to our military might. America’s vast firepower is ill suited for policing the streets of Baghdad, or forcing Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to get along in Iraq. But our modern weapons could easily halt an Iraqi or Iranian invasion in its tracks.

Protecting the flow of oil through narrow shipping lanes in the gulf is a more difficult mission. But responding to Iranian mines or cruise-missile attacks on oil tankers would not require ground forces or land-based aircraft to be stationed in the Persian Gulf during peacetime. In fact, in a war in the Strait of Hormuz, American operations would be carried out largely by submarines, surface ships and naval aircraft — all of which could be stationed in the Indian Ocean during peacetime.

There are, of course, other threats to American interests in the region. Terrorists could damage key oil fields and ports, or friendly governments in the gulf could be toppled by anti-American extremists. These concerns, however, do not justify peacetime forward deployment. United States allies play the primary role defending their own oil fields and safeguarding their internal security, and their forces are better suited for the job. If anything, the presence of “infidel” soldiers nearby increases the likelihood of terrorist attacks and political upheaval.

This does not mean the United States can withdraw all its military power from the region tomorrow. As the Iraq Study Group persuasively argued, forces will be needed in Iraq during a transition to train Iraqi troops, to guard against threats to topple the government in Baghdad, and to strike at any newly discovered Al Qaeda threats. But these missions can be conducted from a small number of temporary Iraqi bases in remote parts of the country, where the American soldiers would be less visible and less vulnerable.

The Iraq war is now a painful failure for the United States. One silver lining brightens that gray backdrop. The Iraq debacle creates an opportunity to reassess longstanding policies that would otherwise be too difficult to change and prompts us to rethink the premises of United States military policy toward the Persian Gulf region. The best way to increase our security and the stability of that troubled region is, paradoxically, to drastically reduce our military presence there.

(Eugene Gholz is a professor of public affairs at the University of Texas. Daryl G. Press and Benjamin Valentino are professors of government at Dartmouth.)


3. Knocking Opportunity -- by William S. Lind

Last week, the Iraq Study Group report burst upon a breathless world, and proved to be an empty piñata. None of its recommendations has the slightest chance of reversing the course of the war in Iraq. Only those who just got into town on the last truckload of turnips expected anything more. All Washington "Blue Ribbon Commissions" are part of the kabuki, intended to fool the rubes back home into thinking something real is happening, when it isn't.

If the Iraq Study Group report is empty of content, the responses to it from the war hawks, or more accurately at this point the war vultures, since what they are feeding on is dead, were as clueless as a Marine at a meeting of Mensa. They denounced it as impracticable, which is true; as fanciful, in thinking Iran or Syria has any reason to help us in Iraq, which is also true; and, in the case of Sen. John McCain, as a recipe for defeat.

Sen. McCain almost got it right. The Iraq Study Group report is not a recipe for defeat, but an acknowledgment of defeat. Therein lies its value, and its function. It offers the Bush administration the bipartisan fig leaf it needs to cover its defeat in Iraq and our inevitable withdrawal.

Like all reports of Blue Ribbon Commissions, the report of the Iraq Study Group is written so as to cover the backsides of its members. It does not come right out and say, "We've lost, and its time to get out." The letter from the co-chairs begins, "There is no magic formula to solve the problems of Iraq. However, there are actions that can be taken to improve the situation and protect American interests."

After this obligatory tip of the cap to Pollyanna, however, the report lays it out as clearly as Washington ever will. The "Assessment of the Current Situation in Iraq" concludes on page 32,

"Despite a massive effort, stability in Iraq remains elusive and the situation is deteriorating. The Iraqi government cannot now govern, sustain, and defend itself without the support of the United States. Iraqis have not been convinced that they must take responsibility for their own future. …The ability of the United States to shape outcomes is diminishing. Time is running out."

Short of concluding with a chorus of "Asleep in the Deep," it would be hard for the Study Group to make the reality of the situation more evident.

Again, what is key is not the details of the report or the viability of its recommendations, but the response to it. Had it the slightest understanding of which end is up, the Bush White House, while politely disagreeing with some details of the report, would have accepted it as "the only way forward." The vultures, led by the neocons, would have "sadly concurred." The Joint Chiefs' strings would have been pulled so they saluted and "got on board" the last train out of Baghdad.

It might have gone somewhat like this: According to the Friday, Dec. 8 Washington Slimes :

Yesterday afternoon, less than twenty-four hours after the release of the Iraq Study Group Report, President George W. Bush, accompanied by Iraq Study Group Co-Chairmen James A. Baker and Lee Hamilton and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, said, "While I do not agree with every detail of the Study Group's Report, I accept that it represents the only way forward in Iraq that will have bipartisan support of the Congress and the American people. I therefore accept its recommendations as a package, as Secretary Baker has described them, and pledge this administration to their speedy implementation."

"I now call on all members of Congress of both parties to join the administration and the members of the bipartisan study group to set aside all divisions and work together. I look forward to having all American combat troops home from Iraq early in 2008."

President Bush was immediately followed by Mr. Baker, Mr. Hamilton, and Gen. Pace adding their endorsements to the administration's new course and calling for an end to partisanship and national division over the war in Iraq.

INSTEAD, as we know, the Bush administration and the vultures have rejected the fig leaf the Iraq Study Group Report offers. Determined to achieve "victory in Iraq," they guarantee that America's defeat will be naked before all the world.

One member of the study group, former Democratic Congressman Leon Panetta, was quoted in the Sunday, Dec. 10 Washington Post as saying, "I think the feeling was, how do you rescue this administration from the grip of ideology and force it to face the real world?"

The Bush administration's only desire, unfortunately for the country, is to escape the grip of reality and immerse itself more deeply in the Jacobin ideology of neocons. It seems that, absent a miracle, we are doomed to wander in Oz for two more years.


4. Pentagon Undercounts Deaths of Iraq Civilians
Iraq Study Group finds "systematic" effort to cook the books.
Editorial Minneapolis/St.Paul Star Tribune

We first heard about Iraqi war-casualty figures from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2004, when its researchers reported finding that 100,000 civilians had perished in the U.S. invasion and its aftermath. The researchers were almost booed off the public stage, so much higher were their figures than others. Undaunted, they came back two months ago with a new report, based on a house-to-house survey, of 655,000 civilian deaths caused by the U.S.-initiated violence. This figure, too, was widely rejected as far too high.

But now comes the Iraq Study Group with an explanation for the discrepancies between the Johns Hopkins numbers and other estimates: The Pentagon's reporting system on civilian deaths systematically underreports violence in Iraq. How? "The standard for recording attacks," the bipartisan group said, "acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases."

Suddenly, the Johns Hopkins numbers are getting another, closer look, which they deserve.

In December 2005, long after the first John Hopkins estimate of 100,000 deaths, President Bush offered his belief that "only" 30,000 Iraqi civilians had died. When the researchers came back with their 655,000 figure in October, he was scathing in his criticism: "Six hundred thousand -- whatever they guessed at -- is just not credible." The researchers' methodology, he said, had been "pretty well discredited."

Actually, it had been pretty well substantiated. Before the Lancet, a British medical journal, published the latest report, the results were examined by four independent experts who found the effort scientifically sound and urged publication. The methodology that Bush said had been discredited is basically the same methodology used in the U.S. census survey and employed sampling techniques that undergird every credible public opinion poll.

Of the 655,000 deaths the Johns Hopkins researchers calculated in their extrapolation from the sample, about 601,000 resulted directly from violence and about 54,000 from a generally deteriorating health and environmental climate in Iraq. The researchers estimated that American forces were responsible for almost one-third of the deaths.

But most of those deaths did not show up in Pentagon tallies, and the Iraq Study Group explains why: "A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count. For example, on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence."

The Iraq Study Group rather drolly concludes, "Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals." In other words, the Pentagon "systematically" cooked the books to make things look better in Iraq than they actually were.

Why are we not surprised? From the very beginning of the tragic Iraq adventure, the Bush administration has distorted the truth about pretty much everything, from weapons of mass destruction to Al-Qaida linkages to Iraq to the number of Iraqi civilians being killed. And in the process, the administration lied to itself, making sound policy choices almost impossible.

The Iraq Study Group recommends "immediate changes" in data collection on violence in Iraq "to provide a more accurate picture of events on the ground." We have a neat solution for the White House: Hire the Johns Hopkins researchers.


5. A Peace Prize for Iraq: The Economist's Solution to the War -- by Dean Baker

The events of the last week should have dashed any hopes that the Iraq Study Group's (ISG) plan would lead to a quick US withdrawal from Iraq and an end to the violence. President Bush has made it clear that he will not accept the ISG plan for a phased withdrawal of troops. Even if he did accept the ISG plan, it is not clear how much longer US troops would remain in Iraq, nor that the plan would lead to an end to the civil war.

Some new thinking is clearly in order. John Schmitt, my colleague at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has risen to the occasion. He has developed an economist's solution for the war in Iraq - a $200 billion peace prize.

The basic logic of the plan is very simple. At the moment, the various religious/ethnic groups in Iraq are fighting for control over Iraq and/or their particular territory in the belief that they have to protect their share of oil revenue and the other assets of the country. In other words, they have to fight to protect what they have, or to control what they think they should have.

The peace prize reverses this logic. It uses the money that we would have otherwise spent on the occupation to give the Iraqis money for not fighting. The prize would be given to the people of Iraq (sent as checks to each individual) if certain targets are met for reducing violence. If the targets are not met, no one gets any money.

For example, the prize could have a target that Iraq has fewer than 10,000 deaths due to political violence over the next year (as certified by an independent commission) in order for the first installment of $40 billion to be paid. The target could be lowered to 6,000 for the next year, with successive years having progressively lower targets for politically-motivated killings. In each case, if the country misses the target, no money gets paid.

A prize of this magnitude would potentially mean serious money for the people of Iraq. It would be sufficient to provide almost $1,500 for every man, women, and child in the country, or $6,000 for a family of four. This is a huge sum for people in Iraq, where per capita GDP is less than $1,800 a year. The equivalent sum for the United States would be $150,000 a year for a family of four. This would be enough money to get most people's attention.

If families in Iraq knew that they stood to get such large windfalls by keeping the peace, they might place considerable pressure on the militias, insurgents and jihadists to stop the killing. If the prizes were actually paid out, it would provide a huge boost to the Iraqi economy and could provide a basis for sustained economic development.

Of course, there is no guarantee that even the prospect of a large sum of money would be sufficient to end the current cycle of violence. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have seen their loved ones murdered, with many of the killings committed in especially brutal ways. These people may not be willing to just let bygones be bygones.

But the fact is, no one else has a better idea. Clearly, the Bush-Rumsfeld "stay the course" plan is a dead end, which will only lead to more death and chaos. The ISG's graceful departure still would imply that US troops would be involved in Iraq for several more years, and certainly provides no guarantee that the eventual outcome is peace in Iraq.

The peace prize proposal has the advantage that it would allow the United States to withdraw its troops as quickly as logistical arrangements can be made. The money that would otherwise go to support the occupation would instead be available to the Iraqis, if and only if they managed to keep the peace. At the least, this ends the US occupation. It also provides more hope for a peaceful outcome than anything else on the table.

(Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer (www.conservativenannystate.org ). He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.)


6. What’s the Opposite of a Pyrrhic Victory? -- by Robert Shetterly

James Baker’s & Lee Hamilton’s report from the Iraq Study Group on the situation in Iraq and their recommendations on how to proceed avoids three of the most important aspects of this catastrophic situation. Thus, it does nothing to avert the mythic disaster that inevitably befalls a country -- like ours -- determined to ignore the strictures of reality.

1. The report never talks about the manner in which the U.S. Congress and people were manipulated into war by this administration. The lies and deceptions used to engineer this war were a betrayal of the Constitution and of our democratic Republic. Any solution must not just figure out how the U.S. can exit from the war, but, equally important, how such deception can be avoided in the future. To do this we all have to face the truth of what happened. The Study Group did not address this issue; it provided cover for the administration. By implication it took the administration to task for poor planning and incompetence, but that is not nearly enough. Crimes were committed. An essential ingredient of the success of a democracy is its willingness to demand accountability. Without people being held responsible, nothing lasting can be learned. We are indeed doomed to repeat our history if no one is held accountable for the mistakes and crimes of the past. I have heard it said that the Baker-Hamilton report was a devastating criticism of the administration’s handling of the war. But there is no way it could be devastating enough unless it included criminal indictment. In fact, then it would not be devastating. It would be liberating.

2. The report never disavows the actual goals of the invasion. We all know that the goals were neither self-protection from extraordinary weapons, nor the interdiction of Saddam’s phony connection with Osama, nor the building of democracy in Iraq. The goals involved the establishment of permanent U.S. military bases at a central location in the Mid-East, and the privatized control of a vast supply of oil, and, under the Bremer Rules, the privatization of all of Iraq’s essential business. The Baker-Hamilton report states that U.S. forces should stay in Iraq for an indefinite time to protect our “national interests.” What this “bi-partisan” committee is trying to do, in the inverse of a Pyrrhic victory, is find a way to lose the war but still win the war’s objectives. This duplicity will not be lost on Sunnis, Shiites, or anyone else in the region. There will be no peace until the U.S. leaves Iraq, turns over its bases to the Iraqis and forgoes all imperial ambitions, including the oil. Even then, of course, the violence may worsen. When you sow the whirlwind, it, not you, is in control. ( It’s important to note that James Baker has very close ties to the oil industry and has worked for the Carlyle Group, the international corporate entity made up primarily of former multi-national government officials, like George H.W. Bush, who have used their insider connections to make billions selling arms & oil.)

3. The best way to end the conflict is for the U.S forces to be withdrawn immediately. Much of the violence is in reaction to the presence of the U.S. occupying force. The Study Group admits this, but then ignores it. Much attention is given to the training of Iraqi forces, with the warning to the Iraqi government that it has to now take responsibility for the violence in Iraq --- as though it is their fault. Before they take responsibility, we have to. Who started this war? Who made the unprovoked attack? Who destroyed the infrastructure of the country and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians? Who whistled the tune for this particular “cake walk?” Who should pay for the reparations? Who created a situation so awful that there are no good solutions? The U.S. has to make it very clear that this is our fault and our mess to clean up ---- which brings me back to the beginning. We can’t take appropriate responsibility for the end of this affair if we don’t take responsibility for the beginning. It was not bungling. It was a crime against humanity. Implicit in the Iraq Study Group’s report is that they approved of a pre-emptive war sold to the American people by deception and that they approved of the neo-colonial goals. They’re pissed that the heist was handled so badly.

I am very fond of quoting James Baldwin who said, “People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.” For nearly four years the Bush administration has shut its eyes to the reality of the situation in Iraq, and we can all see how close we are to destruction. They also employed every underhanded means they could to mask that reality from the American people. They have arrogantly claimed that they could create reality faster than anyone else could hold them accountable, that they could outrun the consequences of their acts. Oh, the hubris of power! Did Dick Cheney or Karl Rove never read a Greek tragedy? (They could have learned the same lesson from the Road Runner.) All of us who refuse now to see the larger realities and to hold people accountable for them will also face destruction. The Iraq Study Group’s proposals are not a good start toward a realistic solution. They seek both to ignore the initial betrayal of our republic and to hide the objectives which they are still hoping to achieve.

Our job, as citizens, is simply to speak reality to power. None of us wants to confront how bloody abominable this situation --- both in Iraq & in our duplicit government --- really is, but we must. It’s a fire we must walk through with no knowledge of what’s on the other side. It has nothing to do with partisanship. It has to do with salvaging the republic. And it’s a fire we must walk through so that we can have the opportunity to walk through the other conflagrations burning ahead --- global warming and energy depletion --- while there is still time.

(Robert Shetterly is a writer and artist who lives in Brooksville, Maine. He is the author of Americans Who Tell the Truth. Check his website.)