Predictions Directly From Baker's Iraq Study Group

Tuesday, 28 November 2006

Regional Middle East Conference?


NOTE: This report comes from a member of the Iraq Survey Group. I am simply posting the report.

These are my personal predictions and expectations as we approach the announcement of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (ISG) recommendations. I wish it were a more optimistic picture.

There is a seemingly endless list of Catch-22 situations in Iraq, all increasingly intertwined with similarly intractable problems throughout the entire Middle East, to which there simply are no satisfactory answers. Nothing has brought home to me the extent and the complexity of those problems more than the experience of working for almost seven months now with the research committee supporting the James Baker - Lee Hamilton Iraq Study Group in Washington.
In my private opinion, the ten ISG commissioners are approaching a consensus that there is no way the United States, alone or in concert with the present Iraqi central government, can influence decisively the domestic problems in Iraq to a degree that would meet President Bush"s criteria for "success" (the new euphemism for the conditions that were, until very recently, referred to as "victory".)

Further, I believe that the ISG's recommendations, while not specifically acknowledging this discouragement, will reflect a common agreement to recast the whole Iraq problem in terms that they must all realize full well the president and vice president will find unacceptable.
Anticipating this unwelcome result, I expect that the White House will begin, even before the ISG's report is ready, to downplay the importance of its recommendations in order to justify acceptance of alternative strategies that are being prepared concurrently by the Defense Department and the NSC. Those, I am certain, will continue to promote the delusion that "success" is still a realistic objective in Iraq.

Such obstinate denial of reality will keep the policy waters muddied, the Iraqi Government adrift and divided, and the violence continuing unabated, until the United States has lost the last vestiges of its political credibility and military leverage. The initiative will at that point have passed completely to the radical elements all over the region whose influence we most fear. There goes the Middle East.

Fasten your seat belts, as Bette Davis would say, because it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Barring the sudden intervention of unforeseen new factors (it is too soon to evaluate the potential repercussions of the Jumayl assassination in Beirut, for example), my private guess is that Baker and Hamilton will soon announce a set of recommendations of which the following is, in my opinion at least, the most important and potentially the most controversial:
Encourage the holding of a regional conference to enlist the support of neighboring states in establishing stability in Iraq. This would be an attempt on the part of the United States to diffuse the Iraq problem by subsuming it within a new regional "grand design" --- a general objective that I have advocated very strongly right from the beginning. All principal states of the region would be invited, particularly including Iran and Syria --- and Israel.

For reasons discussed at greater length below, this initiative could succeed only if the United States and Israel were to convey to prospective attendees in advance their readiness in principle to make significant concessions and accommodations in return for comparable concessions and accommodations from Iran and Syria, by themselves and on behalf of their allies in Lebanon and Palestine. There do exist potential compromises that would give all those parties a sense of having protected their vital interests and of having achieved positive advantages for their respective causes while still facilitating enough progress toward regional stability to satisfy America's minimum remaining goals and expectations. To persuade all the parties of those realities will be a supreme test of diplomacy and political courage, without doubt. Nothing less, however, will avert the train wreck toward which we are currently headed under full steam.)
This strategy would undeniably present a huge political challenges to both the United States and Israel, in particular. Nevertheless, I believe the strongest and most forward-looking members if the Baker-Hamilton Commission, acutely aware of the immensity of these obstacles, but acting in full recognition of the absence of any other available course of action that could lead to satisfactory resolution of the Iraq imbroglio, are prepared to recommend that effort.To underline my own recognition of the difficulties we are talking about, let me try enumerating some of them. There is, let me repeat, no simple or easy way to escape the looming catastrophe that was set in motion by the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The situation is so dire that the "impossible" has become an urgent necessity.

Note: The ISG is also obviously going to address the question of when and under what conditions the United States will start withdrawing troops from Iraq. Some kind of withdrawal plan is a minimum insisted upon by the majority of Democratic members of the Commission and some of the Republicans, as well. They are apparently still far from agreement on this issue, which seems to be taking on more and more partisan political overtones. I have reached no conclusion myself on that question because I do not consider myself qualified to form an opinion. I'm sticking to a subject where I feel confident of my own judgment.
Regarding the regional conference idea:
Here, I start from a position of full agreement with Daniel Levy, an Israeli analyst (and former Oslo negotiator), who makes the point in a recent article in Washington Monthly that "The much-neglected Israeli-Arab conflict is as central to Middle East stability as the Iraq war is. The United States can't truly address the latter without taking on the former, too. A regional policy makeover that fails to make these connections is unlikely to create the tipping point that will move the Middle East from extremism towards moderation." (There are many other Israelis and American friends of Israel who agree with Mr. Levy that the alternative is an ever-increasing isolation and endangerment of Israel. This realization has gained much more currency in Israel since the recent summer war in Lebanon and the looming probability of Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons.)
A new and comprehensive "regional policy makeover" is a grand idea, but presents many serious complications when one gets down to the details of actual implementation. To have any realistic chance of success, I believe that the process would have to start with the announcement of a major initiative, promoted and vigorously supported by the United States, to reach a comprehensive resolution to the Israel-Arab crisis through a process of reasonable compromise and accommodation between Israel and its Arab neighbors. I believe that a fair and equitable solution to that problem, in which each interested party would be made to feel that its most vital concerns were recognized and accommodated, would be welcomed and supported by the Europeans, Russians, Chinese, the great majority of Arab states, and even Iran and Syria --- if structured with imagination and political courage, and if objectivity and a commitment to fairness were demonstrated by the president of the United States. Those who would not lend their active support would at least be reluctant to oppose a strategy that promised justice in Palestine as a foundation for broader peace and stability in other troubled parts of the Middle East. I see no other way to achieve the essential objective of "internationalizing" the process of stabilizing the region --- or of creating conditions conducive to extricating the United States from the quagmire in Iraq. Most importantly, I believe (with no specific evidence to back up my hunch) that several key members of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group hold the same opinion.

Let's consider the following immediately daunting obstacles to the convocation of a regional conference:


Who would call the conference? Protocol demands that it should be the Iraqi Government, but in fact there is no entity in Baghdad today that commands enough authority to speak for all three primary competitive political constituencies in the country. For example, will the leaders of the Iraqi Sunni community allow a Shia-dominated regime to speak for them at a conference of regional states? The answer is obviously no.

Who would set the agenda? What inducements would have to be offered to Iran and Syria to encourage them to be cooperative? Would they not insist, at a minimum, that the agenda include consideration of their own demands and expectations? Otherwise, what advantage would they see in accepting a proposal that originated in Washington and was apparently designed to advance American interests, not theirs? The participation of Syria and Iran in the formulation of a new order in the region is an undeniably beneficial objective. But the price that the United States would have to pay in order to reach accommodation with Iran and Syria is one that I can't imagine President Bush tolerating at this juncture, even to achieve the primary objective of extricating himself from Iraq.

Under what set of conditions would Israel agree to attend? At a minimum, we can be sure that Israel would demand an assurance from the United States in advance that the Arab states and Iran would not be permitted to divert and disrupt the primary purposes of the conference. Israel will not attend the party without a bodyguard, in other words. If America plays that role, our adversaries will exploit that relationship to complicate and perhaps successfully isolate both Israel and the United States from other present and potential allies in the area, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. If that dangerous situation is to be averted, then both Israel and the United States must come to a regional conference prepared to address fundamental questions of Israel-Arab relations, which in turn means that both Israel and the United States would have to be prepared to make substantial modifications of their respective positions on vital issues. Unless an American president is willing to take us down that road, no regional conference will produce results that would alleviate our overall Middle East problems --- or, for that matter, provide Israel with long-term security. (In case anyone suggests that Israel need not be invited, or if invited need not attend, please consider the odds of Iran, Syria and Palestine agreeing to cooperate in finding a satisfactory way to end the American occupation of Iraq while Israel continues to occupy large areas of Palestine. Forget it.)

How about the Palestinians? What delegation could represent them before a unity government is agreed between Hamas leaders and Abu Mazen? Why would any Palestinian delegation be willing to help America extricate itself gracefully from Iraq while the US was maintaining a policy of political isolation and economic strangulation in Palestine? (Note: If the ISG suggests a regional conference to which Israel would not be invited, that could only be because Israel and its supporters in the United States intervened to protect Israel from involvement in a process in which it would inevitably have to make significant concessions and compromises. Holding a regional conference without Israeli representation, however, makes no sense whatsoever.)
How about Lebanon? What kind of delegation could Beirut send while Hizballah and other pro-Syria and pro-Iran elements are challenging the authority of the Siniora government? It is difficult to imagine how either Syria or Iran would adopt favorable positions with respect to Iraq if, at the same time, they are expected to curtail support of their surrogate allies in Lebanon. (Under no circumstances, obviously, could the US agree to restore Syria's hegemony over Lebanon in return for Syrian cooperation on the Iraq question. That's another non-starter. Perhaps the US will have to put pressure on Israel to make territorial concessions in the Golan. It all depends on what price America and Israel are willing to pay to achieve long-term peace and stability. Simple as that.)

In short, the proposal to call a regional conference sounds good, but does not stand up very well to hard analysis. With George W. Bush in the White House, I cannot see a single prospective participant in a regional conference of this kind (particularly the United States and Israel) coming to the table prepared to make the compromises and concessions that will be essential to reaching a constructive outcome of US policy in Iraq. Success was achieved at Madrid because everyone wanted essentially the same things. Here, everyone wants something very different. (Note: Grand conferences to resolve major international conflicts have always been convened either by the victors, or by the surviving victims, but never by the original perpetrators of the problem. Here, the United States started the fire, and is belatedly calling the other local inhabitants of the village to help extinguish the flames. The neighbors might participate to save their own property from destruction, but they will not arrive prepared to make any sacrifices to rescue the party that they consider to be the original arsonist!)
However, all the foregoing having been said, I believe that the ISG will nevertheless recommend the convocation of a regional conference, and I believe that this course of action, despite the tremendous obstacles that it poses, is the only course that holds any realistic chance of achieving success. Tragically, I think George W. Bush will not agree even to give it a sporting chance.
So even a recommendation of last resort also contains many elements of a classic Catch-22.
As I say, fasten your seat belts!

Summary: No simple or convenient solutions. Very little hope of success. But no better ideas to work with.
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AGAIN: This report comes from a member of the Iraq Survey Group. I am simply posting the report.

Posted by SusanUnPC on Tuesday, 28 November 2006 at 10:19 Permalink , SusanUnPCatgmaildotcom

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/11/regional_middle.html