Word: bakers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...These regional actors, of course, are the same ones the Bush Administration hoped would be swept away by the democratic tsunami Iraq was supposed to unleash. To embrace the Baker-Hamilton strategy, President Bush would have to abandon some key foreign policy positions to which he has been deeply wedded throughout his presidency. Critics, including much of the Republican "realist" old-guard personified by Baker, would argue that this is simply a matter of acknowledging reality. But the President will find plenty of support from conservative voices, along with those across the spectrum who most fervently back Israel...
...President Bush plainly had other ideas, telling a press conference he was sure Baker and Lee Hamilton didn't expect him to embrace all of their recommendations. Bush made clear, for example, that he has no intention of following the Baker-Hamilton proposal for a rapid move to engage Iran and Syria in a process aimed at stabilizing Iraq. Instead, he simply reiterated his Administration's preconditions for talking to those two nations: Iran must first suspend its uranium enrichment activities, Bush said, while Syria would have to stop interfering in Lebanon...
...such cooperation. On the question of talking to Tehran and Damascus, moreover, President Bush certainly has the backing of a number of legislators from both sides of the aisle, who have questioned whether Iran and Syria would have any inclination to help out the U.S. in Iraq. Baker would agree that they're not about to help out just to be nice, but his commission - which interviewed senior figures in both regimes - believes their cooperation can be won on the basis of enlightened self-interest. Still, they would need an incentive to cooperate, which would necessitate the sort of diplomatic...
...Baker-Hamilton study sees unconditional U.S. support for Israel as poisoning the prospects for U.S. progress in the region, because it generates such deep-seated ill will toward America in Arab public opinion that it becomes increasingly difficult for even friendly Arab regimes to lend support to Washington. The 9/11 Commission made a similar point, noting that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a key source of hostility toward the U.S. that is exploited by extremist elements. Still, not much has changed in the Administration's policy positions. And despite the urgent pleas of such key U.S. allies as Jordan...
...regional strategy advocated by the Baker-Hamilton group looks, if not quite dead on arrival, at least destined for the back burner. But that regional strategy is a critical component of the package, precisely because the Iraq Study Group has plainly shown that the Bush Administration's plan to unilaterally transform the Middle East through the application of force has failed. Acting alone, the U.S. appears unable to create a stable post-Saddam Iraq, and regional cooperation with regimes distasteful to the U.S. but nonetheless able to influence events is essential...