James Baker, personal fixer for the Bush family, currently has the unenviable job of bailing H.W.’s undertalented kid out of Iraq. Baker’s commission was more or less doomed from the start since all of our Iraq options basically boil down to 1) leave and accept the consequences, or 2) create a winning force out of troops that don’t exist. Option (3), stay the course, doesn’t actually exist since troop and materiel shortfalls will soon mandate option (1) regardless.
We know that Bush (correctly) views option (1) as a personal defeat so that choice has always been off the table. Option (2) sounds too much like Hitler shoring up the western front by moving around divisions that don’t exist (pardon the Godwin violation, it’s a tactical comparison). So it always seemed likely that Baker’s commission, bound on one side by the unacceptable and on the other by the impossible, would essentially use its brain trust to come up with some way to disguise option (1) enough that junior could dodge the appearance of total capitulation.
Impressively, Baker’s commission has apparently accepted option (1) as inevitable and made the only possible conclusion: Iraq will partition itself along ethnic lines.
AN independent commission set up by Congress with the approval of President George W Bush may recommend carving up Iraq into three highly autonomous regions, according to well informed sources.
[…] The Baker commission has grown increasingly interested in the idea of splitting the Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions of Iraq as the only alternative to what Baker calls “cutting and running” or “staying the course”.
“The Kurds already effectively have their own area,” said a source close to the group. “The federalisation of Iraq is going to take place one way or another. The challenge for the Iraqis is how to work that through.”
This strikes me as a relatively mature perspective on our current situation. We will leave, Iraq will split up (migration due to ethic cleansing is accelerating) and so we may as well try to shepherd it constructively while we still have any influence at all. That sound like more or less what I would recommend at this point.
Sadly, Juan Cole points out that even the best strategy is now pretty much bubkis. Like JC it occurred to me that some parts of Iraq, for example the mixed cities of Kirkuk and Baghdad, will not go easily into one federal classification or another. Any one of these contested zones could easily set off a full-on civil war if any effort is made to shoehorn them into one or another ethnic group’s territory.
You have to wonder whether Baker’s time would have been better spent discouraging Bush fils from going into Iraq in the first place. At this point his job seems about as useful as junior smashing the family car into an oncoming freight train and then commissioning Baker to figure out how to get it started again.
Mr Furious
Well, since Bush didn’t ask Daddy for the keys first, it’s about all they can do.
The Other Steve
It’s times like this when I regret not becoming an international arms dealer.
Steve
The two choices are (1) stand by and let ethnic cleansing take place, or (2) help it along? Sheesh, nice war you’ve gotten us into.
Politically speaking, I have no doubt that immediately after the election, all the options that were deemed far too dangerous and irresponsible will suddenly be considered perfectly reasonable again. Not that the Bushbots will notice any cognitive dissonance, they never have before.
Pb
So James Baker and Joe Biden are more or less on the same page here–is anybody else? Oh well, at least we can blame the British too…
stickler
Pb:
As a wise statesman once said,
“You forgot Poland.”
Now watch this drive.
Andrew
Me too. And everytime I see Bridget Moynahan.
Punchy
I’m glad someone else noticed this, too. Biden mentioned this near a year ago, I think. The R’s laughed him off. Of course, they laughed off Shinseki (sp?) and a number of other generals, too, so I guess I ought not be surprised.
I cannot wait to hear what euphanism Bush will resort to when he finally does pull troops. I’m guessing a nuanced version of cut and run, like, “Carve and Walk”, or “Slice gently and Schlepp Away”, or “Not Doing Whatever It Is Clinton Would Have Done”…
docg
Nah, Punchy, it will be a declaration of “Glorious Victory for Fearless Leader.” Advance apologies for the seriously outdated Rocky and Bullwinkle reference. This bunch has always operated with a Politboro approach to language – words mean what I say they mean. Up is down.
ThymeZone
We said it here, on these pages, months ago:
Iraq is in a state of civil war, our presence there is pretty much irrelevant to it except in terms of the risk to our own people, and nothing we do while still there is going to make a lot of difference in the long run.
This was true in the summer of 2005. Now it’s the fall of 2006 and the Bushes are starting to catch on.
How did people this self-absorbed and this suicidally stubborn ever get the keys to the United States of America?
The people need to be asking themselves this and trying to learn from the mistake, because the Texas Oil-igarchy is certainly not going to learn from it.
The Other Steve
I don’t consider selling arms to freedom fighters the equivalent of aiding ethnic cleansing, and I resent the implication!
My job is to simply to supply what the market demands. are you against the free market too?
– The Other International Gun Runner
Buck
Aren’t we spending billions on military bases and a new Embassy in Iraq?
I guess I need a good definition of “leaving” before I can have an opinion of whether or not we will leave.
I figure we let Iraq naturally divide itself into three provinces and then we supply the money and arms for each of them to continue destroying one another.
Divide and conquer is not a new strategy.
Anonymous Jim
This is great in the abstract but when you get down to brass tacks, might not be so easy to sell. What percent of oil revenues are the Kurds going to get for the northern oil fields? Are the Sunnis just screwed because they don’t live on oil reserves?
ThymeZone
They certainly did … and still do.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
Maybe he’ll land a fighter jet in Sarajevo next to a “Mission Accomplished” banner. Or, our troops will do what the Onion suggested months ago, and invade their way out of Iraq via Iran. Really, that option makes about as much sense as anything else I’d expect Bush to come up with.
Baker’s really thrown me for a loop here, I dislike his politics but I’d forgotten that when it comes right down to it he’s a pretty sensible, pragmatic guy in the realm of foreign policy.
Speaking of Bosnia, Baghad gets to be Sarajevo, Kirkuk gets to be Gorazde, Mosul is Bihac; I’m not sure which city gets to be Srebrenica/Zepa, there will probably be lots of contenders for that one. I want to say that Basra gets to be Banja Luka, but that presupposes that the Shiites will take the Serb “bad guy” role; then again, it being a port city, maybe it’ll be this conflict’s Dubrovnik.
The real question is, will President Hillary help to stop the various genocides in 2011, or will her political hand have been too weakened by our role in fomenting this whole mess?
Tsulagi
Ah, daddy’s men to the rescue again to babysit their emotional and mental infant. Full circle. From Florida in 2000 to now trying to give him the illusion of a pony to hold onto in this pile of shit he’s created if Plan A runs out of time.
If at all possible, the idiot will stick with Plan A. Pass it on to another president. When the inevitable breakup of Iraq effectively occurs, if a Dem is in office, blame it on him/her. If a Pub, just say it’s hard for a new guy to come in midstream and wistfully wish you would have had a few more years to wrap up the minor details. Of course the retard will believe that shit.
Baker’s plan isn’t Plan B. It’s simply recognizing what monumental incompetence has created and what will continue without any effect from the admin dipshits. The civil war for turf and settling old and new scores.
If the no-spine, no-fault admin runs out of time, Plan B will have been the plan all along. Didn’t you hear it while we were talking about mushroom clouds? The base? They’ve proven they’ll buy any turd and call it caviar.
Photonaton
This administration does have a fondness for three word slogans (“Stay the Course”, “Adapt to Win”, “Cut and Run”, “War on Terror”, probably more).
Implementation of the commission’s ideas could be titled “Face the Music” (Come to think of it, the way things are going, that may well meet the needs of the entire R party on November 8).
Even tho’ Baker’s re-emergence may (belatedly) inject some (and “some” cannot be overemphasized, because Baker himself can be a bit of a weasel) much-needed pragmatism into this administration, I am not gleeful.
So sad, they could have done the same thing several years ago, with perhaps a better prognosis than can be had now, and many lives saved. Or, they could have recycled “Just say No” before they went in.
Sojourner
Hilarious. Baker shamed himself in his attempts to get Boy George selected in 2000. Now he’s been hired to try to salvage Boy’s ass.
Too bad thejoke is on the people of the U.S. and Iraq.
scs
I really think we should see more interviews with Sunni insurgents. I still can’t figure out what the hell they want. Do they really think they are going to get the whole country back like before? And do they really think what they had before so great, considering it could be even better now economically for all parties involved, even if they aren’t at the top? And do they really think blowing up people on a regular basis in the market place is going to a.) either scare the Shia’s into submission or b.) win Shia hearts and minds so that they will want to form a common country with them or c.) really change American plans one way or the other.
The only other thing I can think of is too much inbreeding in the Sunni community and some sort of violence gene has been overbred – they do tend to marry their cousins a lot there. I mean look at Saddam Hussein and his family – a long line of sadistic kooks- like pitbull humans. I don’t get why they don’t just cut a deal with the Shia’s and move on, as they will end up better that way economically and politically anyway. It defies logic , so there has to be some other explanation.
Sojourner
I’ve had the same thoughts about the Bush clan.