Word: bakers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...
...visits to the White House earlier this week highlighted the key dilemma facing President Bush as he contemplates changes to his Iraq policy: One guest was former Secretary of State James Baker and the rest of the Iraq Study Group, which together with much of the "realist" establishment in U.S. foreign policy is urging the Administration to recognize that a dialogue with Iran (and Syria) is an essential component of any successful strategy to stabilize Iraq. Bush's other visitor was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose main purpose at the White House appeared to be pressing the President...
...President Bush will soon discover what Baker and Olmert probably already know: That it won't be possible to do both...