Posted on 12/07/2006 8:28:35 AM PST by Valin
HH: Explain your reaction, if you’ve had a chance to read even the executive summary…I’ve been through the whole document, and it is a disaster if it is followed.
CH: Yes, it is indeed. Why, you ask? Well, it means that both our friends and our enemies in the region are in a sense put on notice, that in the case of the enemies, all they have to do is wait us out. And in the case of our friends, that we don’t have much of an appetite for sticking by them. That’s to say the democrats in Lebanon and in Iraq and so forth have begun to feel a rather chill breeze. Actually, that’s the smallest way you can put it, given the sort of cruelty and violence to which they’re subjected every day. And our foes will think well, this is almost too easy.
HH: Yeah.
CH: The whole conversation has been shifted, more or less, within a matter of weeks of not whether to withdraw, but how to do so and how quickly.
HH: I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to meander through the appendices yet?
CH: I have not.
HH: Of the 43 former officials and experts consulted, there are included Mark Danner of the New York Review of Books, Thomas Friedman, Leslie Gelb, Sandy Berger, Anthony Lake, Ken Pollack, Thomas Ricks and George Will. The ISG did not find, I’m quoting from my blog here, the ISG did not find it necessary to talk with, say, Victor Davis Hanson, Lawrence Wright, Robert Kaplan, Mark Steyn, Michael Ledeen, Reuel Marc Gerecht, or Christopher Hitchens. I think Bill Kristol got five minutes. Did they seal themselves off, Christopher Hitchens, from any kind of robust approach to Iraq?
CH: Well, I don’t particularly mind being snubbed by someone like James Baker, let alone Mr. Lee Hamilton. I can live with that. But what does annoy me…I can be annoyed on someone else’s behalf. And I know, for example, that our friends in the Kurdistan regional government, which is the most successful and thriving and prosperous and peaceful part…not just only of Iraq, but of the whole region, is a great success of the regime change platform, were not invited to contribute, were not visited in the three provinces of Northern Iraq that they control, and that they’ve kept safe, without losing a single American soldier. In fact, there are hardly any American soldiers needed there, that the committee didn’t travel there when it was in Iraq, it didn’t seek their opinions in Baghdad either, and that seems to me an absolutely grotesque oversight.
HH: There’s a second one. Of the 21 foreign officials interviewed, only David Abramovich, who’s the director general of the Israel Minister of Foreign Affairs, was consulted from the Israeli state. And incredibly, Christopher Hitchens, they did not consult with anyone from the democratic government of Lebanon, even as they urge us to reach an understanding with the thugs of Syria, who are mowing them down one by one.
CH: Well, that’s really quite extraordinary, because for example, Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the Lebanese Socialist Party, whose father was a very heroic Lebanese politician also, was murdered by the Syrians in the 70’s, and who is leader also of the Druze community, which is a very important community in Lebanon, and a very important figure in the elected government there. He was in Washington very recently, and has been quite often putting the case for Lebanese autonomy, and so it’s not as if he’s a hard man to find, or anything of the sort. This clearly can’t be oversight, can it?
HH: No. I’m of the mind, and I’ve just written, it immediately reminded me of the Hoare-Leval Agreement, and I hope it gets the same status of that classic of appeasement literature. Will it?
CH: Well, the first name in that pact is almost perfect, isn’t it?
HH: Yes. But I’ll leave it to you as the Englishman to explain why.
CH: Well, Samuel Hoare, which I think you’ll agree is the perfect name for the first line of a limerick…
HH: Yes…
CH: Actually, I do know a limerick about him, but…
HH: But I don’t want…I don’t think the FCC will allow it.
CH: I can’t repeat it on your program.
HH: No.
- - - -
HH: When they write about Iran, that we need to engage them, a full blown diplomatic offensive, what possible opportunity is there to engage Ahmadinejad and Khatami, and the rest of the mad mullahs?
CH: Well, it’s not as if it hasn’t been tried, you see. I mean, I’ve talked recently to a lot of people in Washington, British and American, and other Europeans, too, who’ve been involved in these very long, drawn out negotiations of Iraq. They’ve been made a lot of very handsome offers for directors, and they’ve been handed great bushels of carrots as well, often, I would say, rather humiliating sized bushels. And the thing is, they won’t take them. I mean, they won’t take these offers. It’s not that we are refusing to be nice to them. It’s that they aren’t interested in this kind of negotiation. And certainly not if it comes at any price such as they have to prove they’ve been adhering to a treaty they solemnly signed, namely the non-proliferation treaty. They won’t do that. They’ve been repeatedly caught cheating and concealing. And so, for anyone to say that we haven’t exhausted the option of being nice, or making nice, is flat out fatuous. Were it otherwise, I still think that it would be a very good thing for the United States to say publicly where Iranians can hear it, because we know that there’s a huge reservoir of sympathy for democracy and friendship within Iran. And also, the people can get satellite dishes and internet access and so on. They’re not imprisoned as the Iraqis were, and the North Koreans still are. We can talk directly to them. I’m in favor of making all kinds of approaches of that sort, over the heads of these scrofulous mullahs who of course do not reflect the Iranian people’s choice, and are the product of a laughably rigged election.
ISG is a strategy for a negotiated surrender - or at best a tactical retreat. It calls for:
* Redeployment away from the primary field of battle;
* Leaving the primary enemy (Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists) in a position of power;
* Leaving our allies (Israel, Jordan, etc) more vulnerable;
* Offering our secondary enemies & their allies concessions (nukes for Iran, Golan for Syria);
* In exchange for safe passage during the redeployment.
Well gosh I don't understand why anyone would have a problem with these.
/sarcasm
The good news is in a couple of weeks no one will remember or use this piece of garbage.
A very different time.
What we see in this "report" is a 9-10 attitude to the world.
Sure they will. After all, you can never have too much toilet paper. ;-)
Baker is still fighting the first Gulf War.
He's bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Good Lord, that's their definition of "expert"? Journalistic hacks, advisors whose expertise brought us 9/11 in the first place, and an unrepentant sock-stuffing thief?
I'm reminded of the task force of "experts" that nearly foisted Hillary-Care on an unsuspecting nation. This is, in fact, the nomenklatura of American politics, a New Class entitled to rule because by golly, every member of it feels that he or she ought to and has a pulpit from which to declare it. I wouldn't trust this gaggle of geese to drive a bus, much less my country.
On another thread, there were quotes from a number of Arab observers in the Middle East, and - embedded in their comments - you could see the beginnings of an insight, i.e., that an Arab/insurgent "victory" over the Americans, however much it might please the Arab ego, would probably be a disaster for the region. In other words, some of the more intelligent Arabs are beginning to realize the consequences of an insurgent victory, and they don't like what they see. So there is just a chance that the actual possibility of American withdrawal will spur the Arabs to finally realize that this is ultimately THEIR war to win or lose, THEIR struggle with tyranny and fanaticism.
Right! No doubt.
He repeats the name of the person he is interviewing often for the benefit of people who just tuned in.
Most of the men and women on that panel are so old they probably can't remember 9-11.
He probably does that to remind viewers who may have just tuned in who he's talking to.
The terrs hardly need another 9/11 style attack; the Dims are doing their work for them.
viewers = listeners
:-)
Nancee
The whole conversation has been shifted, more or less, within a matter of weeks of not whether to withdraw, but how to do so and how quickly.This is what really sickens me. Is Bush really going to turn a minor election setback into a major foreign policy defeat?
He hasn't done it yet, but is he going to?
bttt
I love that they call it realism. This is realistic, feeding lambs to wolves?
I have not read the 79 recommendations, but it seems to line up with the letter I sent 11/30 noted below.
The Baker/Hamilton Commission will soon report on Iraq. Based on its composition, we should expect obfuscation, suppression and fabrication to dominate text for findings and recommendations. What other outcome could obtain when 8 of 10 members started professional life as lawyers, and two went on to become elected officials? The two former Secretaries of State should advocate traditional foreign policy models allowing us to escape commitment in self-congratulatory, affirming ways through brilliant interpretations of national interest, multi-lateralism, exit strategy, and re-deployment. Notice police, intelligence, and military professionals, who could assess terrorist actions and Iraqi capabilities for stability and security, were excluded from leadership roles.
If such professionals serving as subordinates submit observations and recommendations, those become subject to filtering and editing by leaders accustomed to logics earning the United States distinction for abandoning allies at strategic moments. During the Cold War examples included Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Guatemala, Cuba, and Lebanon. More recently the Georgetown et al brotherhood enabled focus upon Academy Awards and Super Bowl, and away from over 2 million deaths in Bosnia, Lebanon, Somalia, Basra and southern Iraq, Sudan and Rwanda.
Ten’s of million Iraqi’s have sacrificed for an elected government, constitutional referendum, and, physical reconstruction, and have now convicted Saddam Hussein of capital crimes. They must now consider abandonment by people accustomed to embracing sophisticated moral certainties enabling them to turn a blind eye, and agonize over the resultant human loses from afar.
All that report did was to weaken a country.
Makes us look desperate and verifies to the world that U.S. protection commitments are worthless. Just the publishing of this report weakens us whether or not it's suggestions are accepted. It represents to the world the views of highly respected Americans who are politically powerful. It reinforces the cut and run crowd and further diminishes the commander in chief's determination to stand by our commitments to the Iraqi people. This hints to our enemies that terror works and to our friends that terror works and the U.S. can't defend against it. If I were a Gulf State, I think I'd be warming up to Iran right now with not a moment to spare.
What a ridiculously decrepit panel!
When I saw that old bag pro-abortion ex-judge Sandra Dope O'Connor there, I knew that I should immediately discount any recommendations made by the senile bastards.
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