A mess Team W can't fix
ANALYSIS
BY LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON
No miracles will occur.
Whether this declaration flows from a White House assessment of the work of the Iraq Study Group or from the leaders of that group themselves declaring their lack of angelic qualities, it is an accurate description. There will be no miracles in Iraq to save President
Bush from America's failure there.
Jam-packed as the ISG's report is with recommendations and assessments, it is not a panacea for what ails the Bush administration. Even if its recommendations are spot-on, even if the President accepted every detail, there is not the requisite diplomatic skill and expertise within this national leadership to pull it off.
Not to mention that one of its key members, the vice president and his staff, are adamantly opposed to even making the effort.
Moreover, the unmistakable patina of the report is for an ultimate U.S. "turn and walk" from Iraq, blaming the Iraqis for our tragic inability to make their country into a functioning state.
The report is a day late and several dollars short as well. We have made so many mistakes since May 2003 that it is almost inconceivable that any strategy at all could work now.
In fact, Iraq may be on the verge of not simply more of the sectarian, criminal and terrorist violence that has so marred the country, but inter-sect violence as well as Shiites under Moqtada al-Sadr battle other Shiites under Abdel Aziz al-Hakim for ultimate control. Such violence is already occurring in the south of Iraq.
Better training of Iraqi police and military, more pressure from the Iraqi government on the sects to conform to a national agenda, better allocation of resources by the Iraqi leadership, a less obtrusive but more effective U.S. military presence, international support for Iraqi reconstruction, and bilateral and regional conferences with those most concerned with restoring stability in Iraq will help. But they are not sufficient.
Capable, risk-taking, bold and decisive leadership - leadership that does nuance and not simply black and white - as well as consummate diplomatic skills at key junctures are absolutely necessary to carry out such efforts.
This leadership and these skills do not reside in the current administration, even with the addition of the new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
Gates, too, has his own basket of challenges, not the least of which is how to untrain thousands of Iraqis and then retrain them. For three years, the military trainers focused on numbers, numbers and more numbers, never looking to quality. Now, as they shift to quality, how can they suddenly convince thousands of previously ill-trained military new methods, new trainers and new curricula will miraculously produce a competent army?
And then there is the vice president. How to circumvent him and his minions? It seems an impossible undertaking. With 88 people working directly for him on his own personal staff - an unprecedented number - and others strategically placed throughout the federal bureaucracy, Cheney is a formidable force. Isolated by the President or not, he can still wreak havoc, for example, with any attempt to empower Secretary of State Rice to conduct meaningful diplomacy in the region.
And even if Rice were able to avoid the usual landmines Cheney will put in her path, it seems improbable that, with the strategic leverage the Iranians have gained through American ineptitude in Iraq, any diplomatic initiative would succeed, no matter how skillfully executed. The price to be paid now for an acceptable deal with Iran may be too steep for any American President to pay.
And still we hope.
Let's see how Bob Gates is welcomed. Let's see just how isolated the vice president is. Let's reserve judgment until the President has removed all doubt, either way. But let's remember too that we - America - did this to Iraq. Turning and walking away, while we thumb our noses at the woefully inadequate Iraqis whom we tried to save but couldn't, should not be an option.
All eyes now should be on George W. Bush. Is he really "the decider"?
Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson (Retired) was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002-05.
