Word: baker
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...sincerely wants peace in Iraq and the broader Middle East, and that for the few months remaining in his premiership, he shouldn't just sit around. But his foreign-policy speech at the [an error occurred while processing this directive] Guildhall last week, followed by videolink testimony to the Baker-Hamilton commission in Washington that's tasked with somehow extricating the U.S. from Iraq, makes me think Blair's remarkable self-belief, so often his most potent tool, is now clouding his judgment. The thrust of Blair's argument is that, to counter Islamic extremism, diplomacy needs a kick start...
...Groundhog Day is perpetual. Last week, Blair was still asking Bush to get involved. Perhaps the rumors are true that James Baker (who orchestrated the 1991 Madrid conference that finally got the Israelis and Palestinians talking) will recommend another big confab, so Blair, who tried to get one going in 2003, is pushing against an open door. Unfortunately, during the long hiatus when Blair has been imploring Bush for help, relations between Israel and the Palestinians have soured to curdling and U.S. influence with Arab states has plummeted. "Besides the residual, declining power of America, Bush doesn't have...
That Iraq is spinning dangerously out of control is no longer a matter of debate; the question has become how to stabilize it and limit the damage. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group, headed up by former Secretary of State James Baker, is supposed to offer up some answers next month when it presents its much-anticipated report. But the events of the past week underscore how difficult even damage-control in Iraq has become...
...failures of the Iraqi government are only one part of the challenge facing the Administration in setting an Iraq policy capable of delivering stability and offering the prospect of bringing home American troops. What are widely believed to be the Baker group's basic assumptions - that the U.S. can no longer achieve the goals defined by the Bush Administration at the outset of the war; that achieving stability will require a regional consensus in which Iran and Syria would be important stakeholders - have already entered conventional wisdom in U.S. debates over Iraq. Since the U.S. election, talk-shows...
...whatever direction Baker proposes, it is less likely to be a comprehensive blueprint than aprocess for the various stakeholders in Iraq to build consensus on how to establish a measure of stability. And that will necessarily be a long and drawn-out discussion, during which the security needs will remain unchanged and urgent. That may have been why President Bush's basic message on Iraq this week boiled down to this: Don't expect results in a hurry...