Iraq Study Group report - doomed to fail
Iraq Study Group report is already doomed to fail. Right from the beginning I don't think anybody, even the ISG members themselves believed that the Bush administration would have the capacity, flexibility and intelligence to make any effort in order to change their catastrophic policy.
On the other hand I think that the report is somewhat naive to think they can make Iranians help USA to get out of Iraq. They must be too naive to think that United States can call Iran axis of evil and go for sanctions against it, and at the same time ask it for help. This needs a drastic change of policy toward Iran and again, the current US administration has not the capacity to do that.
Another mistake and naive thinking in the report is bringing up the Israeli/Palestinian issue and binding it to the Iraq problem. Nobody are more interested in an unstable middle east and particularly Iraq than Israel. They love to see Shiites and Sunnis slaughtering each other like they do in Iraq today. So why would they take part in any effort to stabilize the region?
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3 comments:
Well, basically you have brought up three different issues:
1. The capacity of the Bush administration to seriously consider the ISG recommendations and eventually change it's policy and carry them out. I agree with this one.
2. USA needs to change it's policy toward Iran, before they ask for cooperation. I don't think you are right on this. There are acually some common grounds for such a cooperation, like limitting the Iraq's crisis, and even work for a relative stable Iraq. After all both Iranians and Americans are pragmatic enough to help each other out in some degree.
3. Israel/Palestine issue is definitely a central issue of stablizing the region, but I agree that it is too ambitious and unrealistic to bind it to the Iraq crisis.
The Baker-Hamilton recommendations to engage Iranians in a solution to Iraq crisis are not adequate at all from the view point of Iranians. Recommendation 8 states that:
"The Study Group recognizes that U.S. relationships with Iran and Syria involve difficult issues that must be resolved. Diplomatic talks should be extensive and substantive, and they will require a balancing of interests. The United States has diplomatic, economic, and military disincentives available in approaches to both Iran and Syria. However, the United States should also consider incentives to try to engage them constructively, much as it did successfully with Libya.
Some of the possible incentives to Iran, Syria, or both include:
i. An Iraq that does not disintegrate and destabilize its neighbors and the region.
ii. The continuing role of the United States in preventing the Taliban from destabilizing
Afghanistan.
iii. Accession to international organizations, including the World Trade Organization.
iv. Prospects for enhanced diplomatic relations with the United States.
v. The prospect of a U.S. policy that emphasizes political and economic reforms instead of (as Iran now perceives it) advocating regime change.
vi. Prospects for a real, complete, and secure peace to be negotiated between Israel and Syria, with U.S. involvement as part of a broader initiative on Arab-Israeli peace as outlined below."
What Iranians want is a kind of go-ahead for their nuclear program and some guarantees for not being attacked either by United States or Israel.
Iranians nuclear program has been mentioned a few times. Recommendation 10 says:
"RECOMMENDATION 10: The issue of Iran’s nuclear programs should continue to be dealt with by the United Nations Security Council and its five permanent members (i.e., the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China) plus Germany."
In section "4. International Support" under the chapter "Assesment of the Current Situation in Iraq" it is correctly mentioned that:
"Iran appears content for the U.S. military to be tied down in Iraq, a position that limits U.S. options in addressing Iran’s nuclear program and allows Iran leverage over stability in Iraq. Proposed talks between Iran and
the United States about the situation in Iraq have not taken place."
Conclusion: I don't see any way, how and why Americans and Iranians
could reach a long term agreement in helpin the Iraqis.
Good to have some cites from the Baker-Hamilton report about the issue of having Iranians and Syrians in the process of solving the Iraq situation.
I want to emphasize once more that even Iran may not find the Americans offers or incentives enough for them to engage helping Americans (I'm not sure how much they both acutally are willing to help Iraqis, rather than themselves in the first place), but I think the relative stablitiy of Iraq is the one thing they can cooperate on.
It is true that Iranian involvement in Iraq and their support of the militant Shiites has been an irritant to Washington. But I agree with Vali Nasr in his article "The New Hegemon" (read the summary of the article in this blog) when he says: "Iran has supported the political process—elections, constitution, and governments included—that the United States introduced to Iraq. Iran does not want Iraq to fail or break up, and the idea of a civil war next door is certainly worrisome to Tehran. Iran wants the Shia government in Baghdad to succeed, and for Shias to consolidate the gains that they have made since 2003. So why has Iraq failed to bring Tehran and Washington together?"
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