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Onward,
Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva
November
14, 2006
Benching Scowcroft
Why
the Iraq Study Group Won't Get Us Out of Iraq
By RAY McGOVERN
President George W. Bush conferred yesterday
with members of the James Baker-led Iraq Study Group came against
a background of chaos in Baghdad, a quisling government demonstrably
incapable of stemming the violence, and an Iraqi resistance emboldened
by the vote of no confidence given to the president's Iraq policy.
As expected, yesterday's meeting was primarily photo-op.
The important question is:
Can the Iran Study Group be expected to come up with constructive
suggestions for alternative policy on Iraq. The answer is no.
Background
The Iraq Study Group project
was forced on a reluctant president by members of Congress last
March, with Rep. Frank Wolf (R, VA) pushing the initiative.
I had a brief conversation with Wolf in front of the House Rayburn
office building in March. He had been to Iraq and echoed the
party line that "We cannot withdraw our troops quickly"-but
it seemed to me, without whole-hearted conviction. I had the
impression that, even then, he sensed that neither could we stay.
Wolf moved mountains to set
the study group in motion as a way of providing cover for the
president if/when it became clear even to Bush that the approach
authored by the Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal was not only amateurish
but politically nonviable. The president may be smart enough
to recognize that that time has now come and use the cover that
the study group could provide; and, then again, he may not.
He has shown a stubborn propensity to turn a deaf ear to sensible
suggestions on Iraq in the past; the question is who will have
his other ear. It is highly unlikely to be the study group.
Yesterday's White House photo-op
reminded me of the one orchestrated in early January with a dozen
former secretaries of state and defense, who were given all of
ten minutes (that would be 50 seconds a piece) to "advise"
the president on Iraq. It was not just serendipitous but quite
telling that the president's other main visitor was Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert, because, if past is precedent, Bush is
likely to be give as much weight to Olmert's views as to those
of the Iraq Study Group.
Scowcroft
Benched
Who has the president's open
ear was made abundantly clear by the circumstances surrounding
the benching of the person far better equipped to lead such a
group-national security adviser to former president George H.
W. Bush, Gen. Brent Scowcroft. Chairman from 2001 to 2004 of
the prestigious President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
(2001-04), Scowcroft took the highly unusual step of complaining
publicly that Olmert's predecessor, Ariel Sharon, had our current
president "mesmerized" and "wrapped around his
little finger." For that unforgivably candid remark, Scowcroft
was sent packing and told never again to darken the White House
doorstep.
It remains to be seen whether
Olmert and the Israel lobby will still have as much hold on the
president in the light of the fiasco in Iraq-not to mention in
Lebanon-and the mid-term election outcome. But the entreaties
of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to do the sensible thing
and include the core problem of Israel-Palestine in any discussions
of a solution to the Iraq imbroglio are likely to hit the president's
deaf ear-no matter the pleading by Blair to the study group by
video-conference today. And, while Baker has shown some sensible
flexibility on Israel-Palestine in the past (in the process winning
the enmity of hardliners in Tel Aviv), it is unlikely that he
can impart wise balance to the group on this question-due in
part to its very intentional "bipartisan" composition.
Needed: Nonpartisan, NOT Bipartisan
Co-chair of the Iraq Study
Group is the always-eager-to-co-chair, co-star of the 9/11-commission
whitewash, former Democrat congressman, Lee Hamilton. But for
an effort to come up with bold policy initiatives, "bipartisan,"
is the kiss of death. Such a group needs to be nonpartisan,
as was the group of "Wise Men" put together by presidential
adviser Clark Clifford, at Lyndon Johnson's request, after the
Vietnam Tet offensive in early 1968, when Johnson could no longer
avoid the conclusion that he had gotten bad-often dishonest-advice
from his generals and his always-up-beat inner circle. (More
on LBJ and the "Wise Men" below.)
Other members of the Iraq Study
Group are: Lawrence Eagleburger (who just replaced Robert Gates),
Vernon Jordan, Edwin Meese, Sandra Day O'Connor, Leon Panetta,
William Perry, Charles Robb, and Alan Simpson. "Bipartisan"
also are the study group's "Expert Working Groups"
and "Military Senior Advisor Panel." There sit a truly
remarkable congeries of ideologues, think-tankers, and captains
of industry and finance-sprinkled far too lightly with non-ideological
former government officials with substantive expertise-like Larry
Diamond, Chas Freeman, and Wayne White.
We are told that all are sworn
to secrecy on the substance of ISG discussions. But some are
speaking openly about the issues at hand. Baker has said publicly
he thinks it would be wise to include Syria and Iran in discussions
on Iraq. In an apparent effort to nip that one in the bud, the
president chose yesterday to reiterate his refusal to talk with
Iran until it gives up its nuclear program.
Panetta has commented on what
he learned from U.S. military, intelligence, and diplomatic briefers
when the ISG spent three days in Baghdad in early September.
"We left some of those sessions shaking our heads over
how bad it is in Iraq," said Panetta, adding that private
assessments are "much more grim" than what one hears
from the administration in public.
"Economy and Reconstruction"
sub-group member Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at Brookings,
is speaking freely about what he calls the "mess" in
Iraq and told ABC News that the administration will probably
opt for incremental "pragmatic approaches, including involving
Iran and Syria" to improve the situation in Iraq. The things
being proposed, says O'Hanlon, are "a lot of second-level
ideas that hopefully all together add up to something notable."
With all due respect, the dynamics in play are such that the
ideas will not be "second-level," but second-rate.
For example...
More Troops
to Iraq?
Gen. John Keane (USA, ret.)
of the "Military Senior Advisor Panel" takes a different
tack. He recommends that 40,000 additional U.S. troops be sent
to secure Baghdad. And Sen. John McCain (R, AZ), too, continues
to press for sending more troops to Iraq as the only way to "salvage"
the situation. McCain, a likely contender for president in 2008,
seems to be positioning himself to avoid the blame that inevitably
will be pinned on those who "lost Iraq."
His comments echo the views
of die-hard "neo-conservatives" like Bill Kristol
which merit the Ralph Waldo Emerson label, "a foolish consistency."
Kristol is now strongly against the current policy of "staying
the course;" rather, he presents the administration with
an un-nuanced choice: "Do what is necessary to succeed,
or quit." Kristol wants 50,000 more troops sent to Iraq
to secure the capital and then conduct "clear and hold operations."
(Please don't laugh; he says he's serious.) Where would he
get the troops? Easy, says Kristol; through "rapid steps
to increase the overall size of American armed forces."
Do not completely rule out
a troop increase. That would be Vietnam déjà vu,
of course, but such untutored strategizing, with no adult supervision,
is common among those who never took "Insurgency and Civil
War: Vietnam 101. And Emerson, of course, was right. "A
foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
It is a critical problem-the
ever-tightening circle around a president who admits he doesn't
read the newspapers. However disappointing Colin Powell's knee-jerk
saluting of the commander-in-chief, at least Powell had been
around and knew something of the world. (Rumsfeld, of course,
is good riddance.) But what you now have around the president
is what we call, in intelligence parlance, a self-licking ice-cream
cone.
Bush cannot say he was not
warned. We closed our first Memorandum for the President from
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (a critique of
Colin Powell's UN speech that same day) with these words:
"We are convinced you
would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond...the
circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see
no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended
consequences are likely to be catastrophic."
LBJ's "Wise
Men"
The contrast between the Iraq
Study Group and the group of "Wise Men" appointed by
President Johnson could hardly be starker. The latter was nonpartisan
and comprised of experienced old hands-hardly an ideologue among
them: Clifford, Harriman, Acheson, Generals Omar Bradley and
Maxwell Taylor, McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, Douglas Dillon, Rusk,
and Justice Abe Fortas. Equally important, they were supported
not by a cast of thousands but a small group of military, diplomatic,
and intelligence officials dripping with expertise and courageous
enough to speak truth to that powerful president.
The result? In less than a
month (March 1968), Johnson was persuaded the war was lost and
so was his presidency. He curtailed the bombing of North Vietnam,
chose the path of negotiations (yes, direct negotiations with
the "insurgents"), and announced that he would not
run again for president.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing
arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC.
After serving as an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and then
27 years as a CIA analyst, he co-founded Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity.
An earlier, shorter version
of this article appeared on TomPaine.com.
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