Mission Impossible: The Iraq Study Group

To be fair to James Baker and the rest of the panel members, Bush's failed prosecution of the war hasn't given them many options. The President of Huah! was never in it to win it, and now we're stuck with the consequences of the most willful ineptitude in history. Why Bush wasted our military resources and ruined our reputation over a needless war he apparently never planned to win is anyone's guess. Now, the Iraq Study Group has spent the past seven months trying to figure out how to put that humpty-dumpty back together, and this is what they came up with:

Those familiar with the panel's work predict that the ultimate recommendations will not appear novel and that there are few, if any, good options left facing the country. Many of the ideas reportedly being considered -- more aggressive regional diplomacy with Syria and Iran, greater emphasis on training Iraqi troops, or focusing on a new political deal between warring Shiites and Sunni -- have either been tried or have limited chances of success, in the view of many experts on Iraq.

I guess they need more time to mull over all those daring ideas, since the report isn't due out until December. But to tide you over here's another advance tidbit, to be filed under No Shit Sherlock:

Baker is also exploring whether a broader U.S. initiative in tackling the Arab-Israeli conflict is needed to help stabilize the region.