After Baker, what next for the war in Iraq?

He is under intense pressure after last week's damning report on Iraq. But George Bush is likely to disappoint his critics by pouring in more troops

Paul Harris and Peter Beaumont
Sunday December 10, 2006
The Observer

"......Many expected Bush and his coterie of top officials to accept the report. Or at least be chastened by it. In fact, neither happened. Just as the report exposed the divisions in Iraq, it also revealed the chasms in American attitudes to the conflict. Bush's reaction revealed a White House still determined to go its own way. Far from looking for a way out, he is still looking for a way to win the war. 'Some people believe the central challenge is how the US can leave Iraq. He believes the central challenge is how to make it work. He wants victory,' said Larry Haas, a political commentator and former Clinton White House official.

For those who hoped Baker and his bipartisan committee would at last offer a way out of Iraq and an end to the war, last week turned into a deep disappointment. Only one thing became clear: the US military presence in Iraq is not going anywhere soon......

Bush's New Way Forward is likely to disappoint many critics, especially in European diplomatic circles. He is most likely to start increasing short-term troop number, not withdrawing them. Just two days before he resigned, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Bush in a memo that he believed US troops should be 'drawn down' to encourage Iraqis to stand up for themselves. The new Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, will in fact pursue the opposite of that policy by ordering an increase in troops in the new year, numbering perhaps 30,000 in order to secure the capital.......

There is also a brutal political reality at work. The ISG report is entirely non-binding. The only decisions that really matter are made in the White House. 'Jesus Christ himself could be on the panel. It does not matter,' said Haas. The same goes for the rivalry last week between Baker, who was Secretary of State under the elder George Bush, and the current office holder Condoleezza Rice. Baker may have first known Rice when she was just a Soviet analyst during the Cold War, but she calls the shots now. While last week Baker was conducting high-profile interviews against her diplomatic strategy and urging talks with Iran and Syria, Rice, a known advocate of isolating Syria and Iran diplomatically, remained silent. By the end of last week Baker seemed to have given up. He told one interviewer he would take part in today's morning political talkshows but after that he would stop speaking out. 'I'm finished,' he said......."