Baker '52 team releases report, says Iraq 'deteriorating'

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group co-chaired by James Baker '52 delivered a severe rebuke to the Bush administration yesterday in its highly anticipated report on the Iraq war, calling most significantly for the United States to turn over combat operations to Iraqi forces by 2008 and open diplomatic dialogue with Syria and Iran.

"The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating," Baker and his nine fellow commissioners concluded in their report, which was branded a "realist manifesto" by The Washington Post. "[C]urrent U.S. policy is not working" and Iraq is suffering from a "slide toward chaos," they added. "There is no path that can guarantee success but the prospects can be improved" with a "sustained diplomatic offensive."

The report came the same day that Robert Gates, a former CIA director and former member of the Iraq Study Group, was confirmed by the Senate as the new secretary of defense. He replaces Donald Rumsfeld '54, who stepped down shortly after Democrats trumped the GOP in midterm elections last month that were largely defined by the administration's conduct of the war in Iraq.

Baker, former president George H. W. Bush's secretary of state during the first Persian Gulf War, led the group of prominent public officials charged with the difficult task of crafting a strategy for success in Iraq which would be palatable to both Republicans and Democrats.

"Many Americans are dissatisfied, not just with the situation in Iraq but with the state of our political debate regarding Iraq," Baker and co-chairman Lee Hamilton, who also headed the 9/11 Commission, acknowledged in their introduction to the report. "Our country deserves a debate that prizes substance over rhetoric," they added in a plea for bipartisanship.

President Bush praised the "very interesting report" for some of its "very good ideas." But, he added at a press conference at the White House, "Not all of us around the table agree with every idea, but we do agree that it shows that bipartisan consensus on important issues is possible."

Baker, whose ties to the Bush family go back to the 1970s, is known for his realist outlook on foreign policy, an approach that argues that states are rational actors that prize political self-interest over idealism. When the Iraq Study Group was formed, Baker was seen as the kind of Republican pragmatist who could help extricate America from the conflict and credibly respond to neoconservative hawks in the Bush administration.

The former Ivy Club member and rugby and tennis player is "renowned for his insider knowledge of how Washington, D.C., works, and he has a reputation for being tough and savvy, qualities that will lend credibility to the recommendations made by the Iraq Study Group," J. Stapleton Roy '56, who worked under Baker in the State Department and later served as ambassador to China, said in an email to The Daily Princetonian last week. "As a close, longtime friend of the Bush family, Mr. Baker will also understand how to shape his presentation for maximum effect."

The report cites sectarian violence and an Iraqi government that "is not adequately advancing national reconciliation, providing basic security, or delivering essential services" as reasons for the worsening situation in that country.

In order to move forward, the report stressed the need for President Bush and Congress to work together, warning that "U.S. foreign policy is doomed to failure — as is any course of action in Iraq — if it is not supported by a broad, sustained consensus."

In contrast to the president's repeated calls to "stay the course" in Iraq, the Baker-Hamilton report recommends that the military pull out of front-line combat positions in Iraq over the next 15 months. "The primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq should evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, which would take over primary responsibility for combat operations," it concludes.

Wilson School professor Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt, last week said the administration should either send more troops to Iraq or pull out altogether, but not take the middle-of-the-road approach favored by Baker's report.

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"I personally think that since the prospect of succeeding by remaining there is low ... we should establish a date for withdrawal of troops," Kurtzer, who was consulted by commission members during deliberations, told the 'Prince.'

The report also suggests a new direction in diplomatic efforts with Syria and Iran. "Given the ability of Iran and Syria to influence events within Iraq and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage them constructively," the report states, in contrast to the Bush administration's current strategy, which favors isolating both countries unless they adhere to U.S. demands.

"Syria can counsel Sunnis towards restraint ... and Iran can use its influence with Shiites to exercise restraint," Wilson School lecturer and former U.S. ambassador to Algeria Richard Erdman said in an interview last week. "If everyone in the region is leaning in the same direction, Iraqi groups may act with greater restraint and make the compromises necessary" to end the current violence.

Though the report was generally well received yesterday, Wilson School researcher and Lebanese presidential candidate Chibli Mallat criticized the study group for not consulting with Iraqis when drafting its report. "A major element is to engage with Iraqis themselves," he told the 'Prince' last week. The report "is doomed to never be useful or feasible if Iraqis aren't involved."