THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 202, October 21, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
CONCLUSION FIRST, DEBATE AFTERWARDS:
The Stacked Baker-Hamilton Commission
By Dr Michael Rubin
STACKING THE DECK IN THE DEBATE OVER UNITED STATES POLICY IN IRAQ: DESIGNING THE BAKER-HAMILTON
COMMISSION TO AFFIRM PREDETERMINED RECOMMENDATIONS THAT ARE NEITHER NEW NOR WISE: ABANDON
THE GOAL OF ESTABLISHING A STABLE & ENDURING CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ, SEEK POLITICAL
COMPROMISE WITH SUNNI INSURGENTS, & ENGAGE IRAN & SYRIA AS PARTNERS TO SECURE PEACE & STABILITY IN IRAQ
-- MASTER ISSIDE-THE-BELTWAY OPERATIVES JAMES BAKER & LEE HAMILTON SOUGHT TO STIFLE THE POLICY DEBATE,
RATHER THAN PRIME IT -- MEMBERS OF THE FOUR SUBORDINATE "EXPERT" WORKING GROUPS APPOINTED LESS FOR
EXPERTISE THAN THEIR HOSTILITY TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH'S WAR ON ISLAMIST TERRORISM & HIS FOCUS ON
ACHIEVING CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ
FULL STORY:
Policymakers are abuzz with the explosive recommendations for U.S. policy toward Iraq soon to be released by the
Baker-Hamilton Commission: Abandon constitutional democracy, seek political compromise with the Sunni insurgents, and
engage Tehran and Damascus as partners to secure stability in their neighbor. While former U.S. Secretary of State James
Baker and former U.S. Representative Lee Hamilton said they would withhold their report until after the elections on
November 7 to avoid its politicization, they have discussed their findings with the press. On October 8, for example, Baker
appeared on ABC's This Week, and, the next day, he discussed the group's findings with Charlie Rose. On October
12, both Baker and Hamilton appeared on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Both men are master inside-the-Beltway operators. Rather than prime the debate, they sought to stifle it. While on March 15,
2006, Baker said, "Chairman Hamilton and I have the same objective . . . to make an honest assessment of where we are and
how we go forward and take this issue, to the extent that we can, out of politics," both Chairmen designed the Commission
to affirm preordained conclusions that are neither new nor wise.
Take the four subordinate expert working groups: Baker and Hamilton gerrymandered these advisory panels to ratify
predetermined recommendations. While bipartisan, the groups are anything but representative of the policy debate. I
personally withdrew from an expert working group after concluding that I was meant to contribute token diversity rather
than my substantive views.
Many appointees appeared to be selected less for expertise than for their hostility to U.S. President George W. Bush's war
on terrorism and emphasis on constitutional democracy. Raad Alkadiri, for example, has repeatedly defined U.S. motivation
for Iraq's liberation as a grab for oil. Raymond Close, listed on the Iraq Study Group's website as a "freelance analyst," is
actually a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which, in July, 2003, called for Vice President Dick
Cheney's resignation for an alleged conspiracy to distort intelligence, which they said had been uncovered by none other
than Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV. The following Summer, Close posited that "Bush and the Neocons" had fabricated
the charge "that the evil Iranian mullahs inspired and instigated the radical Shia Islamist insurgency." To Close, the
problem was not Iranian training and supply of money and sophisticated explosives to terrorists, but rather
Neoconservatism.
Other "experts" include a plaintiff in the January 17, 2006, lawsuit against the National Security Agency for its no-warrant
wiretap program and a think-tank analyst who had not traveled beyond the Green Zone on her only trip to Iraq in
September, 2003, but nonetheless demonstrated her open mind by declaring the Iraq endeavor a failure in an interview with
a German magazine just days before the Commission's inauguration.
Baker placed Chas Freeman, his former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, on the panel, despite Freeman's assertion, in the
antiwar documentary, Uncovered: The War in Iraq, that the Bush administration had fabricated its justifications for
war. Why seek advice from an area specialist who has clearly crossed the line from analysis to conspiracy?
Even if the eight other Commissioners -- all distinguished retired government officials -- approached their work with
honesty, they had little opportunity to get an independent look at developments in Iraq. U.S. evaluations of Iraq have long
suffered from an overemphasis on both PowerPoint presentations and conversations with a limited circle of Green Zone
interlocutors. During the Commission's three-day visit to Iraq, only former Senator Charles Robb left the Green Zone,
despite the Embassy's willingness to facilitate excursions. Had Commission members embedded with U.S. servicemen on
patrol, each in a separate area of the country, they might have expanded their contacts, broadened their collective expertise,
and gained access to unvarnished opinion.
Had they done so, they might not conclude that the solution in Iraq lies with further engagement of Iran and Syria. Rather
than inject a "new approach" to U.S. strategy, the Baker-Hamilton Commission's recommendations resurrect the old. In
May, 2001, Hamilton co-chaired an Atlantic Council study group that called on Washington to adopt a "new approach" to
Iran, an approach centered on engagement with Tehran. And, in 2004, Baker-Hamilton Commission member Robert M.
Gates co-chaired another study group that called for a "new approach" toward Iran, an approach consisting of
engagement.
The problem is that this "new approach" hasn't been good for U.S. national security. After Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright extended an olive branch to the Islamic Republic in March, 2000, the Iranian leadership facilitated anti-U.S.
terrorists. As the 9/11 Commission found, "There is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al-Qa'ida members
into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers."
In the weeks prior to the Iraq war, Washington, once again, engaged Tehran. Zalmay Khalilzad, the current U.S.
Ambassador to Baghdad, who, at the time, was Bush's chief Iraq adviser on the National Security Council, solicited a
noninterference pledge from Iran's UN Ambassador in exchange for a U.S. pledge to bomb and blockade the Mujahedeen
al-Khalq terrorist camp inside Iraq. Writing in Asharq Al-Awsat just after Saddam's fall, Ali Nourizadeh, known as
the Bob Woodward of Iranian journalists for his connections to the ruling elite, described how, even as Washington kept
its bargain, the Iranian leadership ordered its Qods Force, the Iranian equivalent of the Green Berets, to infiltrate Iraq with
weapons, money, and other supplies. "According to a plan approved by the Revolutionary Guards command, the aim was
to create a fait accompli," he wrote. Rather than send a diplomat to head its Embassy in Baghdad, the Iranian government
sent Hassan Kazemi Qomi, a Qods Force commander who was Tehran's former liaison to Hezbollah. Effective realism
requires abandoning the utopian conviction that engagement always works and partners are always sincere.
While Baker and Hamilton, themselves, may be sincere in their convictions, conclusions absent acknowledgment of
historical context will backfire. In Iraq, perception trumps reality. Sunni insurgents, former military officers, and Shiite
tribal leaders each voiced one common complaint in a meeting last month: They believe Washington is ready to hand
primacy in Iraq over to Iran. "You have allowed the Iranians to rape us," a former general said. Just as Iraqis believe the
Coalition's failure to restore electricity to be deliberate -- if NASA can land a man on the moon, who would believe that
USAID cannot turn on the lights in Baghdad? -- so Iraqis across the ethnic and sectarian divide are convinced the White
House has blessed a paramount role for Iran. Why else would we allow Muqtada al-Sadr and the Badr Corps to expand
their influence unchecked? Such conspiracy theories may appear ridiculous to an American audience accustomed to
government ineptitude, but, in Iraq, they have real consequences: If Washington has blessed Iranian ambitions in Iraq,
then Washington is to blame for outrages perpetuated by Iranian militias.
When U.S. Representative Frank R. Wolf conceived of the Iraq Study Group, he chose Baker and Hamilton to lead it, in
recognition of their extensive diplomatic experience. But it is this experience that may not only condemn the
Commission's recommendations to failure, but also further inflame Iraq. In the Middle East, Baker's legacy is twofold. As
Secretary of State, Baker presided over the 1989 Taif Accords, which ended Lebanon's civil war. By blessing Syrian
military occupation, he sacrificed Lebanese independence on the altar of shortterm pragmatism. Many Iraqis -- Sunni
elites and former officers especially -- fear Washington may repeat the episode in their country. They fear Baker's cold
realist calculations may surrender Iraq to Iranian suzerainty. While Americans may nonetheless welcome shortterm calm,
in terms of U.S. security, the Taif model failed: Damascus used its free hand to gut civil society and turn Lebanon into a
safe haven for terror.
Baker's other legacy may be harder to shake: Iraqis remember him for his role in Operation Desert Storm. On February 15,
1991, President George H.W. Bush called upon Iraqis to "take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein,
the dictator, to step aside." Iraqis did rise up, but Baker counseled U.S. forces to stand aside as Saddam turned his
helicopter gunships on the rebellious Kurds and Shiites. Had more Commission members exited the Green Zone, they
might have found that, among the greatest impediments U.S. forces and diplomats face in Iraq, is the experience of
betrayal that Baker imprinted on their country. Washington's adversaries have capitalized on this legacy. The
foolishness of Iraqis' trusting Washington has been a constant theme in Iranian propaganda. Should the Baker-Hamilton
Commission also recommend abandoning democracy -- which the Shiites understand as their right to power -- and urge
a political accord with Sunni insurgents, they would push 16 million Iraqi Shiites beyond possibility of accord and into
the waiting embrace of an Iranian regime that, paid militias aside, most Iraqis resent.
Iraq is a bipartisan problem. Regardless of the outcome of the 2006, and even 2008, elections, the legacy of Iraq is going
to impact U.S. policy and security for years to come. It is unfortunate, then, that the Commission has bypassed its
responsibility to seek a new approach and, instead, has embraced the old.
Perhaps, rather than revert to the pre-9/11 habits of shortterm accommodation and a belief that two oceans insulate the
United States from the world, the Commission should expand its mandate. Iraqis fleeing Saddam for the West have
embraced democracy wherever they have settled, an indication that their culture is not to blame. Rather than preempt
debate, fresh eyes might consider whether the deterioration in Iraq signals the failure of democracy or an inability to
ensure the rule of law.
Rather than pretend the Iraq problem can be contained, they might consider whether it has suffered from an
unwillingness to address provocations from beyond Iraq's borders. U.S. national security depends on dealing with the
world we have, rather than the world diplomats construct with smoke and mirrors. Exit strategies might seem easy, but --
like the Taif Accords and the failure to topple Saddam in 1991 -- they are irresponsible and replete with longterm
consequences. What is needed in Iraq is reconsideration of the resources and parameters conducive to longterm
victory, not a repeat of shortterm solutions that will almost certainly fail.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
National Strategy for Victory in Iraq
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
The Middle East & the Problem of Syria
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Michael Rubin, a Ph.D. in History (Yale University) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is Editor of the Middle East Quarterly and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research. Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, 2001) and is co-author, with Dr. Patrick Clawson, of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Rubin served as political advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad (2003-2004); staff
advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense (2002-2004); visiting lecturer in the Departments of
History and International Relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2001-2002); visiting lecturer at the Universities of
Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan (2000-2001); Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (1999-2000); and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Yale University (1999-2000). He has been a fellow at
the Council of Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and
International Affairs.
The foregoing article by Dr. Rubin was originally published in the Weekly Standard, October 20, 2006, and can be
found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
October 21, 2006
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