Beyond laughter, beyond disgust

Here’s a brief history of the Washington, D.C. insiders’ strategic thought process over the last five years.

post-September 11, 2001: We’ve dealt for decades with Mideast tyrants, and look what it led to. Therefore what we’ll do instead is spread democracy in the Mideast. Since dealing with Mideast tyrants did not work, spreading democracy is the ONLY option we have. End of discussion. [And it really was the end of discussion.]

December 7, 2006: We’ve tried spreading Mideast democracy and that doesn’t work, therefore we must go back to dealing with—or rather surrendering to and handing our pants to—Mideast tyrants who are devoted to the destruction of ourselves and our allies. Since democracy didn’t work, flagrant surrender to Mideast tyrants is our ONLY option. End of discussion.

That’s it. That’s the essential “thought process” of the leadership elite of the most powerful and important country in the world.

The Iraq Study Group report, the exhalation of the above mentations, is beyond laughter, beyond tears and rage. The Jerusalem Post quotes it and comments:

“The United States must build a new international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region. In order to foster such consensus, the United States should embark on a robust diplomatic effort to establish an international support … [which] should include every country that has an interest in averting a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq’s neighbors—Iran and Syria among them. Despite the well-known differences between many of these countries, they all share an interest in avoiding the horrific consequences that would flow from a chaotic Iraq, particularly a humanitarian catastrophe and regional destabilization.”
- The Iraq Study Group Report

How embarrassing. Senior figures from both major American parties have, in broad daylight, betrayed such staggering naiveté that their report might not have passed muster with a reasonably discerning high school teacher, let alone offered a serious basis for US foreign policy.

And here’s neocons Robert Kagan and William Kristol quoted in the Jerusalem Post, capsulizing the Report’s main strategic proposals:

So let’s add up the ‘realist’ proposals: We must retreat from Iraq, and thus abandon all those Iraqis … who have depended on the United States for safety and the promise of a better future. We must abandon our allies in Lebanon and the very idea of an independent Lebanon in order to win Syria’s support for our retreat from Iraq. We must abandon our opposition to Iran’s nuclear program in order to convince Iran to help us abandon Iraq. And we must pressure our ally, Israel, to accommodate a violent Hamas in order to gain radical Arab support for our retreat from Iraq.

Mark Steyn, at The Corner, writes about the report with emotions rare for him—indignation and anger:

[T]he only specific strategic proposal is a linkage between Iraq and a “renewed and sustained commitment” to a “comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace”—which concedes the same ludicrous rationale that the Saudi King Abdullah and all the rest of them make: that one tiny ten-mile sliver of Jews is the reason why millions of Muslims from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Emirates are mired in dictatorships, failed economies and jihadist fever. For the Baker group to endorse this clapped out pan-Arabism is disgusting.

Here, also responding to the ISG report but going beyond it, are excerpts from Caroline Glick’s article in today’s Jerusalem Post:

The beginning of the article:

When the history of our times is written, this week will be remembered as the week that Washington decided to let the Islamic Republic of Iran go nuclear. Hopefully it will also be remembered as the moment the Jews arose and refused to allow Iran to go nuclear.

With the publication of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group chaired by former US secretary of state James Baker III and former congressman Lee Hamilton, the debate about the war in Iraq changed. From a war for victory against Islamofascism and for democracy and freedom, the war became reduced to a conflict to be managed by appeasing the US’s sworn enemies in the interests of stability and at the expense of America’s allies.

Baker and his associates claim that the US cannot win the war in Iraq and so the US must negotiate with its primary enemies in Iraq and throughout the world—Iran and Syria—in the hopes that they will be persuaded to hold their fire for long enough to facilitate an “honorable” American retreat from the country.

Like his unsupported assertion that the US cannot win in Iraq, Baker also asserts—in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary—that Iran and Syria share America’s “interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq.” Because of this supposed shared interest, Baker maintains that with the proper incentives, Iran and Syria can be persuaded to cooperate with a US withdrawal from Iraq ahead of the 2008 presidential primaries.

The main incentive Baker advocates offering is Israel.

Baker believes that Iran will agree to temporarily hold its fire in Iraq in exchange for US acceptance of Iran as a nuclear power and an American pledge not to topple the regime. Syria will assist the US in exchange for US pressure on Israel to hand over the Golan Heights to Syria and Judea and Samaria to Hamas.

The end of the article:

OUR SURVIVAL begins with each of us deciding that we are willing to fight to survive. And today the challenge facing us is clear. Either the Iranian regime is toppled and its nuclear installations will be destroyed or Israel will be annihilated. The Jews in the Diaspora must launch mass demonstrations and demand that their governments take real action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The citizens of the State of Israel must also take to the streets. The government that led us to defeat in Lebanon this summer is leading us to a disaster of another order entirely. All citizens must demand that Olmert, his ministers and the generals in the IDF General Staff make an immediate decision. They now hold the responsibility for acting against Iran. They must either act or resign and make way for others who will.

America just abdicated its responsibility to defend itself against Iran and so left Israel high and dry. Nevertheless, the Jewish people is far from powerless. And the State of Israel also is capable of defending itself. But we must act and act immediately.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 08, 2006 10:05 AM | Send