Say Anything Blog

Color me totally underwhelmed.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 — The bipartisan Iraq Study Group reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal, according to people familiar with the panel’s deliberations.

The report, unanimously approved by the 10-member panel, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, is to be delivered to President Bush next week. It is a compromise between distinct paths that the group has debated since March, avoiding a specific timetable, which has been opposed by Mr. Bush, but making it clear that the American troop commitment should not be open-ended. The recommendations of the group, formed at the request of members of Congress, are nonbinding.

A person who participated in the commission’s debate said that unless the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki believed that Mr. Bush was under pressure to pull back troops in the near future, “there will be zero sense of urgency to reach the political settlement that needs to be reached.”

The report recommends that Mr. Bush make it clear that he intends to start the withdrawal relatively soon, and people familiar with the debate over the final language said the implicit message was that the process should begin sometime next year.

So the end result of all deliberation and hype is a proposed threat to the current Prime Minister of Iraq suggesting that we’ll pull out troops out if he doesn’t get the security situation under control?

Does anyone else find that…idiotic?  If the President makes this his official policy and al-Maliki doesn’t get things in line we’ll pull out.  But if al-Maliki does get things in line what will we do?  Pull out, right?  The President has always said that we’d leave once Iraq’s government was able to defend itself, so really either way we’re leaving Iraq. 

Are we really supposed to believe that a threatened pull out is going to make al-Maliki work any harder on this?

If anyone I think the only people such a policy would have an impact on are the terrorists, who will undoubtedly be emboldened by the idea that if they can frustrate al-Maliki’s efforts long enough America will give up and go home.  Which is exactly why this policy is so foolish.  The message the terrorists need to be getting is that of an American force that is resolved to stay in Iraq and work with Prime Minister al-Maliki and any other leaders the Iraqi people choose to get the government and its security forces into a situation where they can be effective and secure.

The message the terrorists don’t need to be getting is one that has America poised to abandon the Iraqis if progress continues to be slow.

I’ll reserve full judgment on this report until it is available to the public, but if the characterization of it in the article is accurate (along with earlier characterizations) I’m not expecting much.