Iraq report’s message to Bush: you can’t go it alone
By Anne Gearan
WASHINGTON: The bipartisan report urging a crash “diplomatic offensive” to stave off chaos in Iraq and seek solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict is a more nuanced version of a common rebuke to President George W. Bush's foreign policy: You can’t go it alone.
The much awaited recommendations from the Iraq Study Group this week focus heavily on old-fashioned diplomacy, a commodity that even reliable US allies have said is undervalued by Bush and his advisers. Bush may dislike what he calls “talk-talk”, the seemingly endless jawboning of diplomacy, but that is just what the commission sets out as its very first imperative.
“This new diplomatic offensive should be launched before Dec 31,” the report released on Wednesday says. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, if not Bush himself, should lead the effort, the 10-member panel says.
The mention of that specific date is noteworthy in a report that is vague in many of its recommendations, and adds a sense of urgency to its call for a new diplomatic approach by the administration.
The report by Washington elders from administrations past reads like the Moderate Republicans’ Guide to Foreign Policy, a repudiation of the “neoconservative” political thought that marked Bush's first term if not always his second, and that Bush's critics see as short sighted or impulsive strategies.
Among the latter is reluctance to cosy up to unsavoury nations or leaders lest the United States look tainted or humbled.
Although it concludes that all is not lost in Iraq, the report amounts to a pointed critique of Bush's prosecution of the war and his wider Middle East policy. By implication, the report accuses the administration of flying blind by refusing potentially helpful contacts and of failing to grasp both the interconnected nature of Mideast problems and the imperative of US leadership to solve them.
The panel said the United States should engage adversaries Iran and Syria, without preconditions, because those nations have influence in Iraq and share some of the same goals as the United States there.
The panel also says the United States should lead a regional effort to address Iraq and other festering Mideast problems simultaneously.
Bush did not sound persuaded on Thursday.
Standing with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his steadiest ally in a war that is widely unpopular around the world, Bush was sceptical of the commission’s call for direct engagement with Iran and Syria. He said a proposed international conference to help Iraq was an interesting idea but Iran and Syria “shouldn't bother to show up” unless they stop funding terrorists.
“In order to solve problems you've got to talk to people,” commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton, a Democratic former congressman, told reporters om Thursday. Talking does not equal concessions, and it is not a reward for bad behaviour, Hamilton said. It is talking, and there is no substitute.
Hamilton's co-chairman, James A. Baker III, who was secretary of state under Bush's father, reminded reporters that he travelled to Damascus 15 times before winning a concession on Israel. His point was clear: Hold your nose if you must, but keep talking.
Ahead of the report's release, the White House said it would consider talking to Iran and Syria if the commission recommended it.
Yet the administration’s overall tone has been one of scepticism about reaching accommodation with Tehran and Damascus. Administration officials have suggested there is more to lose than to gain by rewarding Iran and Syria with high-profile discourse with American diplomats, and warn that Iran in particular could try to use contact with US officials to gain leverage in ongoing separate diplomacy over its nuclear programme.
The United States accuses Syria and Iran of bankrolling terrorism and stirring up trouble in the region. The United States has had no diplomatic ties to Iran for nearly three decades, and pulled its ambassador from Syria last year to protest possible Syrian involvement in the assassination of a Lebanese politician.
Yanking one’s ambassador is “usually the last thing you should do, not the first,” Hamilton said, sounding almost mystified by a decision he called “the surest-fire formula for not getting anywhere.”
Baker made the case for diplomatic pragmatism on Thursday morning to the Senate Armed Services Committee.“We’re not naive enough to think that they, in this case, they may want to help. They probably don’t,'' Baker said.
“What do we lose by saying, ‘We’re getting all of Iraq’s neighbours together; we want you to come,' and if they say no, we show the world what they’re all about,”he added.—AP
