Iraq: Will James Baker End ‘Stay the Course’?

[SWJED]

18 October post at Westhawk - Will James Baker End ‘Stay the Course’?

The Iraq Study Group is a secretive bipartisan commission composed of retired Washington establishment elders. The commission’s co-chairmen are James Baker, a former U.S. Secretary of State and long-time Bush family advisor, and Lee Hamilton, a retired Democratic congressman and House Foreign Affairs committee chairman. The commission will report its findings to the Bush administration and Congress in November or December. The commission’s report, combined with a more hostile Congress and a collapse in support for the current U.S. effort in Iraq by senior Republican legislators, will likely force President Bush to radically change his administration’s Iraq policy.

The President and his spokesmen profess that they and their military commanders in Iraq already continuously adjust their tactics as the situation requires. But what the Bush administration claims it will never toss overboard is its support for Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki’s national unity government and its vision of a unified, democratic Iraq governed by the rule of law.

U.S. congressional support for the Bush administration’s current Iraq policy will likely collapse by December because enough senior Republican congressional leaders, led for example by Senate Armed Services committee chairman John Warner, will no longer believe that Mr. al-Maliki’s national unity government will ever effectively govern Iraq. If a substantial number of senior congressional Republicans will no longer back President Bush’s support of Mr. al-Maliki (a scenario we believe will be clear by December), President Bush will be forced into a new Iraq policy. If the President chooses instead to stubbornly battle these congressional Republicans, the Congress would then very likely impose its own Iraq policy, using its appropriation authority. Needless to say, this scenario is eerily similar to what happened on Vietnam policy between 1971 and 1975...

Much more at the link...