Mission Accomplished

MIKE THEILER/AFP/Getty ImagesQuiet victory: Without anyone noticing, James Baker and his Iraq Study Group have set U.S. policy on Iraq.

When the bipartisan Iraq Study Group released its report containing 79 fixes for the mess in Iraq last December, official Washington welcomed it the way one might greet an IRS auditwith very little enthusiasm. [I] find some of its recommendations misguided or poorly worded, concluded veteran Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross. Lawrence Kaplan, former executive editor of The National Interest, pronounced the report half-baked. On Capitol Hill, the ISG took blows from the right and left. The subtitle of the commissions report proclaimed a new approach. But the leading antiwar Democrat, Rep. John Murtha, snuffed that the commissions approach was not different from the current policy, while the most prominent congressional Republican war supporter, Sen. John McCain, called it a recipe that will lead to our defeat in Iraq. President George W. Bush thought so much of the commission that he decided to form his own competing one.

Much of the disappointment could be forgiven. Everyone was awaiting a miracle solution, and ISG co-chairs James Baker and Lee Hamilton did little to dampen the media hype. But bits of the commissions final report, including its prognosis that the situation in Iraq was grave and deteriorating, were painfully obvious. Public opinion polls showed that some two thirds of Americans already knew that to be true. Other parts, such as the commissions suggestion that the Iraqi government be forced to meet benchmarks, lacked teeth. Why would these elder statespersons suggest only that the United States could withdraw if the benchmarks were not met? This is to say nothing of the fact that some ISG recommendations even appeared to be obviously recycled. Baker and Hamiltons suggestion, for instance, that the Iraq conflict was inextricably linked to the Israel-Palestine crisis was pointed out by former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft way back in 2002. And so the ISG was thanked for its 79 recommendations for fixing Iraqand then it was simply ignored.

Or was it?

In the four months since the ISGs report landed on desks in Washington with a resounding thud, both the White House and Congress have quietly implemented many of the very recommendations they once coldly dismissed. Just look at the ISGs first 12 recommendations, which broadly call for heightened diplomacy, globally and within the region. In January, the Bush administration pooh-poohed Baker-Hamiltons most hyped suggestiona sit down with Iran and Syriain favor of a plan to secure Baghdad with more U.S. troops instead. Since then, however, the administration has pursued talks, including a regional conference on Iraq planned for as early as this month that is to include Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterparts from Syria and Iran. The change in Bushs thinking has apparently been so profound that not even Irans decision to capture 15 British sailors and marines has knocked the State Department off this diplomatic course. The ISG also recommended renewing efforts to help broker a broader Israeli-Arab peace, dedicating five of its 79 recommendations to the subject. Here too, the Bush administration is heeding the ISGs advice. Secretary Rice has already made three trips to Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2007, and has said that she and Bush have had endless conversations on how to formulate a peace agreement.

Throw a dart at the ISG report, and youre liable to hit a recommendation that the White House is implementing. The ISG called for additional economic and military support for Afghanistanand the Bush administration has announced an increase in both. Its sending more U.S. troops and financial aid in order to combat a resurgent Taliban. The ISG called for reforming Iraqs Ministry of the Interiorand the Bush administration now agrees. The presidents plan for Iraq, released on January 10, is requiring reform within the ministry. The ISG called for bringing foreign investment into Iraqs oil sectorand the Bush administration has hopped on board. Bushs January plan calls on Iraq to pass an oil law, currently pending in the Iraqi legislature, to bring foreign investment into Iraqs oil operations. This list goes on and on. More foreign aid for Iraq? Bush asked for it after the ISG recommended it. A revenue-sharing plan for Iraqs oil? Same story.

The White House, of course, hasnt embraced all of the Baker-Hamilton Commissions recommended fixes. For instance, it has steadfastly opposed deadlines for troop withdrawals. Fortunately for the Baker-Hamilton Commission, Congress is picking up the slack. Following the ISGs suggestion that the United States begin to draw down its troops in Iraq by early 2008 (recommendations 40 through 45 in the final report), U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama introduced a bill setting March 31, 2008, as the date for withdrawing troops. Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, led the charge on calling for a redeployment of troops out of Iraq by March 2008, except for troops in those functions recommended by Baker-Hamilton. Countless other measures in Congress have borrowed heavily from the ISGs approach, and not just on troop withdrawal, but on reconstruction, and, most notably, on the plan for setting benchmarks for the Iraqi government, put forward by House Democrats.

All of this is not to say that leaders in Washington have gone back to Baker and Hamiltons report only to realize its omnipotence. They havent. The ISGs work was neither brilliant nor particularly prescient. But the pundits and politicians who condemned it minutes after it was released were too quick to judge. The report wasnt worthless. In fact, its mundane set of recommendations convinced foreign-policy minds in Congress and the White House that they could do better. So folks went back to the drawing board. And what they discovered is what Baker and Hamilton had tried to tell them in the first place: There are very few good options for fixing Iraq.

And that may be the most important conclusion of all.