Go Back, Sea!
Charles Krauthammer likens the report of the Iraq Study Group to the story told of King Canute. There are several versions of that story, But one suspects from the context that Krauthammer means one of the variants that interprets the story as Canute as being foolish and vain. In that context, the man who commanded the tide not to come in is judged a fool.
But having told us that the price of leaving Iraq to chaos is unacceptably high, the commission never attempts to come up with a plan for succeeding. Its only new initiative is to go regional and involve neighboring Syria and Iran.
Syria should stop infiltration, declares the report. And Iran "should stem the flow of equipment, technology, and training to any group resorting to violence in Iraq." Yes, and obesity should be eradicated, bird flu cured and traffic fatalities, particularly the multi-car variety, abolished. Such fatuous King Canute pronouncements give the report its air of detachment from reality.
This holding back of the tides is to be accomplished by negotiations with the likes of Iran. Baker admits that Iranian representatives told the commission that they are unlikely to cooperate. But we must press on, Baker insists, because we will thus expose Iran as "a rejectionist nation" that is "not . . . willing to help try and stabilize Iraq."
Now, there's a diplomatic achievement: undermining our hard-earned agreement with the Europeans to make any future approach to Iran dependent on the suspension of uranium enrichment in order to . . . demonstrate to the world that a country providing sophisticated weapons, roadside bombs and financial support to both sides of the civil war does not support stability there. Is there a sentient adult outside this commission who did not know that?
The tale of King Canute's attempt to stop the sea generally starts with the flattery of courtiers. They heaped praise and flattery on the king. They pronounced him all powerful and all knowing. The press, with pompous, pedantic pronouncements of the vast intelligence and experience the ISG had filled that role admirably. Krauthammer points out the photo-op roll out of the report with the Baker boys' fashion shoot with Annie Liebovitz. Krauthammer judges the Baker commission report worth about as much as the command to turn the tides back. In that comes an opportunity for Bush to take back the initiative.
He must do two things. First, as I've been agitating for, establish a new governing coalition in Baghdad that excludes Moqtada al-Sadr, a cancer that undermines the ability of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government to work with us. It is encouraging that Bush has already begun such a maneuver by meeting with rival Shiite and Sunni parliamentary leaders. If we help produce a cross-sectarian government that would be an ally rather than a paralyzed semi-adversary of coalition forces, we should then undertake part two: "Double down" our military effort. This means a surge in American troops with a specific mission: to secure Baghdad and (with the support of the Baghdad government — a sine qua non) suppress Sadr's Mahdi Army.
I did not vote for James Baker to control the foreign policy of the United States. Nor did anyone else in this country. I did not vote to have a group of "distinguished elder statesmen" come up with a fatuous plan and for the chairman of that group to sagely pronounce that it must be swallowed whole and followed to the letter. For if we do follow it to the letter, the sea will surely rise and close over out heads.
UPDATE: Others: Redstate, Townhall, Decision '08, Wake up America, Don Surber,
