Frank Rich: ISG is "One More Delusional Milestone"

Not that I'd post his entire brilliant NYT column here, but...

The Sunshine Boys Can’t Save Iraq

By FRANK RICH

IN America we like quick fixes, closure and an uplifting show. Such were the high hopes for the Iraq Study Group, and on one of the three it delivered.

The report of the 10 Washington elders was rolled out like a heartwarming Hollywood holiday release. There was a feel-good title, “The Way Forward,” unfortunately chosen as well by Ford Motor to promote its last-ditch plan to stave off bankruptcy. There was a months-long buildup, with titillating sneak previews to whip up anticipation. There was the gala publicity tour on opening day, starting with a President Bush cameo timed for morning television and building to a “Sunshine Boys” curtain call by James Baker and Lee Hamilton on “Larry King Live.”

The wizard behind it all  was the public relations giant Edelman,  which has lately been recruited by Wal-Mart to put down the populist insurgency threatening its bottom line. Edelman’s vice chairman is Michael Deaver, the imagineer extraordinaire of the Reagan presidency, and “The Way Forward” had a nostalgic dash of that old Morning-in-America vibe. In The Washington Post, David Broder gushingly quoted one member of the group, Alan Simpson, musing that “immigration, Social Security and all those other things that have been hung up for so long” might benefit from similar ex-officio bipartisanship. Only in Washington could an unelected panel of retirees pass for public-policy Viagra.

Mr. Simpson notwithstanding, the former senator who most comes to mind is Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York. In the early 1990’s he famously coined the phrase “defining deviancy down” to describe the erosion of civic standards for what constitutes criminal behavior. In 2006, our governmental ailment is defining reality down. “The Way Forward” is its apotheosis.

This syndrome begins at the top, with the president, who has cut and run from reality in Iraq for nearly four years. His case is extreme but hardly unique. Take Robert Gates, the next defense secretary, who was hailed as a paragon of realism by Washington last week simply for agreeing with his Senate questioners that we’re “not winning” in Iraq. While that may be a step closer to candor than Mr. Bush’s “absolutely, we’re winning” of late October, it’s hardly the whole truth and nothing but. The actual reality is that we have lost in Iraq.

That’s what Donald Rumsfeld at long last acknowledged, between the lines, as he fled the Pentagon to make way for Mr. Gates. The most revealing passage in his parting memo listing possible options for the war was his suggestion that public expectations for success be downsized so we would “therefore not ‘lose.’ ” By putting the word lose in quotes, Mr. Rumsfeld revealed his hand: the administration must not utter that L word even though lose is exactly what we’ve done. The illusion of not losing must be preserved no matter what the price in blood.

The Iraq Study Group takes a similarly disingenuous tack. Its account of how the country Mr. Bush called a “grave and gathering danger” in September 2002 has devolved into a “grave and deteriorating” catastrophe today is unsparing and accurate. But everyone except the president knew this already, and that patina of realism evaporates once the report moves from diagnosis to prescription.

Its recommendations are bogus because the few that have any teeth are completely unattainable. Of course, it would be fantastic if additional Iraqi troops would stand up en masse after an infusion of new American military advisers. And if reconciliation among the country’s warring ethnicities could be mandated on a tight schedule. And if the Bush White House could be persuaded to persuade Iran and Syria to “influence events” for America’s benefit. It would also be nice if we could all break the bank in Vegas.

The group’s coulda-woulda recommendations are either nonstarters, equivocations (it endorses withdrawal of combat troops by 2008 but is averse to timelines) or contradictions of its own findings of fact. To take just one example: Even if we could wave a magic wand and quickly create thousands more military advisers (and Arabic-speaking ones at that), there’s no reason to believe they could build a crack Iraqi army and police force where all those who came before have failed. As the report points out, the loyalties and capabilities of the existing units are suspect as it is.

By prescribing such placebos, the Iraq Study Group isn’t plotting a way forward but delaying the recognition of our defeat. Its real aim is to enact a charade of progress to pacify the public while Washington waits, no doubt in vain, for Mr. Bush to return to the real world. The tip-off to the cynical game can be found in a single sentence: “We agree with the goal of U.S. policy in Iraq, as stated by the president: ‘an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself.’ ” This studious group knows that even that modest goal, a radical devaluation of the administration’s ambition to spread democracy throughout the Middle East, has long been proven a mirage. The Iraqi government’s ability to defend anything is so inoperative that the group’s members visited the country but once, with just one (Chuck Robb) daring to leave the Green Zone. The Bush-Maliki rendezvous 10 days ago was at the Four Seasons hotel in Amman.

The only recommendations that might alter that reality, however evanescently, come not from “The Way Forward” but from its critics on the right who want significantly more troops and no withdrawal timetables whatsoever. But a Pentagon review leaked to The Washington Post three weeks ago estimates that a true counterinsurgency campaign would “require several hundred thousand additional U.S. and Iraqi soldiers as well as heavily armed Iraqi police,” not the 20,000 or so envisioned as a short-term booster shot by John McCain.

Since these troops don’t exist and there is no public support in either America or Iraq for mobilizing them, the president can’t satisfy the hawks even if he chooses to do so. Since he’s also dead set against a prompt withdrawal, we already know what his policy will be, no matter how many “reviews” he conducts. He will stay the course, with various fake-outs along the way to keep us from thinking we’ve “lost,” until the whole mess is deposited in the lap of the next president.

But as Chuck Hagel said last week, “The impending disaster in Iraq is unwinding at a rate that we can’t quite calibrate.” It is yet another, even more reckless flight from reality to suppose that the world will stand still while we dally. The Iraq Study Group’s insistence on dragging out its deliberations until after Election Day for the sake of domestic politics mocked and undermined the urgency of its own mission. Meanwhile the violence metastasized. Eleven more of our soldiers were killed on the day the group finally put on its show. The antagonists in Iraq are not about to take a recess while we celebrate Christmas. The mass exodus of Iraqis, some 100,000 per month, was labeled “the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world” by Refugees International last week and might soon rival Darfur’s.

THE Iraq-Vietnam parallels at this juncture are striking. In January 1968, L.B.J. replaced his arrogant failed defense secretary, Robert McNamara, with a practiced Washington hand, Clark Clifford. The war’s violence boiled over soon after (Tet), prompting a downturn in American public opinion. Allies in our coalition of the willing — Thailand, the Philippines, Australia — had balked at tossing in new troops. Clifford commissioned a re-evaluation of American policy that churned up such ideas as a troop pullback, increased training of South Vietnamese forces and a warning to the South Vietnamese government that American assistance would depend on its performance. In March, a bipartisan group of wise men (from Dean Acheson to Omar Bradley) was summoned to the White House, where it seconded the notion of disengagement.

But there the stories of Vietnam and Iraq diverge. Those wise men, unlike the Iraq Study Group, were clear in their verdict. And that Texan president, unlike ours, paid more than lip service to changing course. He abruptly announced he would abjure re-election, restrict American bombing and entertain the idea of peace talks. But as Stanley Karnow recounts in “Vietnam: A History,” it was already too late, after some 20,000 casualties and three years of all-out war, for an easy escape: “The frustrating talks were to drag on for another five years. More Americans would be killed in Vietnam than had died there previously. And the United States itself would be torn apart by the worst internal upheavals in a century.”

The lesson in that is clear and sobering: As bad as things may seem now, they can yet become worse, and not just in Iraq. The longer we pretend that we have not lost there, the more we risk losing other wars we still may salvage, starting with Afghanistan.

The members of the Iraq Study Group are all good Americans of proven service to their country. But to the extent that their report forestalls reality and promotes pipe dreams of one last chance for success in this fiasco, it will be remembered as just one more delusional milestone in the tragedy of our age.

Comments

[BenofNoHo]

Brilliant, insightful and so far off the radar screen of the neocons that it's as though we're living in different worlds. I would think that now that the shrub has looted the entire country and filled the pockets of his cronies he would think that was enought.

But what I fear is that he will feel it is his duty to loot the entire world. I hate the fact that he holds the key to our "nuc-u-lar" arsenal. With his inability to grasp reality, I can really see him using it to open the "new front" on his so-called "war on terror." Maybe on North Korea or on Iran or even on Syria.

Anything to stir up the pot and drive the world into an ever-broadening war - with absolutely no regard for either human lives or the human condition.

I'm an American and I live in gut-wrenching fear of the lunatic running this country.

The Congress needs to use their powers to revoke his war powers and begin investigations into wartime profiteering as soon as possible.

If they don't act quickly, we may be well and truly fucked.

[Stan, London UK]

In Afghanistan, they(I refuse to say we)continue to repeat the Iraq mistakes over and over again. 'Operation Western Hammer' this bloodstained crassness was called. Really strong on the 'hearts and minds' among the civilian populatiion with operations like this:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,2...0- 38201,00.html

[Mark-NC]

Something I've pointed out relentlessly. While Clinton was being raked by Ken Starr, the Republicans, and the "liberal press", his approval ratings were in the high 60s. Bush, who should be removed from office and tried for destroying the image of our once world-leading nation (among other things), has approval ratings in the low 30s.

Hmmmmmmmm. Let's see. 67% + 33% = 100%.

A million bucks says that the 33% (I'm being generous!) that still like Bush are the same 33% that didn't like Clinton.

That's a third of the country that doesn't give a damn if we have a $500 billion deficit and trade imbalance, we are in 10 wars and lose 100,000 troops, if the world despises the air we breathe, if pollution chokes the life out of our future children - just as long as a Republican makes the decisions.

[ray]

What Mark said. You couldn't make this stuff up.

[Swift Loris]

BenofNoHo: "The Congress needs to use their powers to revoke his war powers and begin investigations into wartime profiteering as soon as possible."

The one *good* thing the report has done is to make condemnation of Bush policy respectable among some of those who were reluctant to do so before--e.g., Sen. Gordon Smith, Republican of Oregon. Smith's speculation on the floor of the Senate that the Bush policy "may even be criminal" is another important step, implicitly introducing the threat of impeachment.

Bush, of course, will resist the pressure to change policy tooth and nail, but the Study Group report has upped the ante significantly. Nixon resisted resigning until the pressure to do so simply became too great.

The Study Group's proposals are insignificant compared to the change in atmosphere it has created.

[oldgringo]

The "historical" fact remains that FASCIST "RULERS"-(Read: "Decider"; :War President"; "Commander-In-Chief", etc.,), never surrender power willingly, but MUST BE REMOVED BY FORCE of one kind or another....(HINT--HINT--HINT!)
And our new DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED HOUSE SAYS THAT IMPEACHMENT IS OFF THE TABLE....so where does that leave us but in the same old place....BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP RED SEA...with no "MOSES" in sight, reach or hearing.....

[RepubAnon]

Just because the Democrats say "impeachment is off the table" doesn't mean it can't be put back on the table as soon as they think a 2/3 majority of the Senate might go along with a double-impeachment party. Impeachment now would be a bad idea, anyway - pushing investigations now are much more likely to generate so much evidence that even the most partisan Republicans won't dare scream "payback for Clinton, how immoral."

And the wave that could wash Bush away is growing - we didn't see news articles like this in 2004:

Leave Iraq now; don't wait until 2008 election day
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16186060.htm
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
McClatchy Newspapers

After nearly four years of living in what can be charitably described as a state of denial, everyone in Washington, from President Bush to the Baker Commission to incoming defense secretary Robert Gates, to outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to the study group assembled by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has finally admitted that pretty much nothing is going right in Iraq.

Duh.
..
If you worry about added turmoil and instability in the Middle East, pull some of those departing American forces back to Kuwait and leave them there on standby. Then redirect thought, energy and effort into salvaging Afghanistan, finding Osama bin Laden, saving Lebanon, negotiating peace between Israel and its enemies, rebuilding the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and, oh yes, ending the uncivil war between Republicans and Democrats.

There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there's only one way to leave Iraq: Load our people up on their trucks and tank transporters and Bradleys and Humvees and head for the border. Now.

[Wayne]

Anon...if the *public* puts it on the table, then it's a great big wonderful new ballgame.

[Billy]

But there are some good idea out there. I liked the 'go smart' approach taken by Iraqi joirnalist Nabras Kazimi at his blog talismangate.blogspot.com

[RepubAnon]

What'll be even better is when the Republicans start muttering "impeachment." If McCain didn't think he'd lose the wingnut right, he'd be starting that train right now to show what a "maverick" he is. (Of course, as played by James Garner, 'Maverick" was a likeable but tricky, conniving con artist...)

[Tom Brown,Tasmania]

Frank Rich article: bloody brilliant! Oh that we could have the level of journalistic guts and talent now on tap and in full flood in America now.This pip-squeak ally of the willing here in Australia is one of the lowest, most craven and gutless right wing governments ever to have held office since 1901! The media is likewise tarred with the same brush.

[lawton watson]

Halliburton is not through building the fourteen permanent bases and the gaudy ambassador compound yet. Why don't we just give them and Cheney the fucking money ,say job well done ,get the hell out and save the many more lives surely to be lost ? This would be the least costly in all aspects !