Among the many inevitable outcomes of the unnecessary invasion of Iraq was the appointment of a commission of worthies assigned to work out how we get the hornets back in the nest we had kicked open. This was roughly the assignment of the Iraq Study Group (a.k.a. the Baker-Hamilton Commission) and they have done a reasonable job of trying to restore realism, as well as reason, to an Administration priding itself on pre-Enlightenment divine guidance. History will long remember the startling quote from the Ron Suskind piece in the New York Times Magazine, October 2004: "This is not a reality based Administration; we create reality," or some such.
Whether President Bush is now up to accepting reality, especially a very bitter reality he has created, remains in question.
In summary, here is what the ISG proposes: American military forces should "cut and walk" outside Iraqi cities but not, for the time being, outside Iraq; their role should be to train and not to fight; we should talk to the Iranians and Syrians; we should explore a regional conclave to support nation-building in Iraq; and, perhaps most-importantly, we should reacquaint ourselves with the thorny Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pick up the heavy burden of pursuing peace so ardently avoided by the Bush government.
Here is what early summaries suggest that the ISG does not address: how long should a diminished number of U.S. forces remain in Iraq; whether we should negotiate directly with the Sunni insurgents; whether the Malaki government has the actual capability to quell sectarian violence; whether regional nations will help isolate and crush the jihadists; whether the majority Shiites will share power and guarantee a share of oil royalties to the Sunnis; and what role we can expect Syria and Iran to play in supporting a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
Despite the many blanks left unfilled, the ISG effort is a very large step in the right direction.
But, for all the foreign policy folderol we will hear in coming hours and days concerning the ISG report, it will be but sound and fury if President Bush does not experience a second born-again conversion. He has raised stubbornness to a high art, believing it to be evidence of strength. For him, ignorance is a form of conviction. Given his belief in divine guidance, it would help a bit if James Baker appeared before him as the Archangel Gabriel. But even for Baker, whom many in Washington seem to believe can walk on water, that is a stretch.
The ISG report, and others to follow, will do little to change the mind of a man who still thinks he was placed on earth for the evil hour of 9/11, who believes America is an Avenging Angel whose 21st century mission is to eradicate evil from the earth, and who, as Captain Ahab, willingly suspends the verities of the U.S. Constitution in the pursuit of his own White Whale.