IRAQ STUDY GROUP DELIVERS FINAL REPORT TO BUSH

"YOU BLEW IT"

NEOCON'S NIGHTMARE : WORK WITH SYRIA, IRAN TO END US ROLE IN THE WAR

Over the next few days, millions of words will be published detailing and analysing the findings of the Iraq Study Group's investigation into the state of the Iraq War, and how the United States can get the hell out of there. Fast.

But here's the short version :

Iraq Study Group to President Bush : "You Blew It!"

It's a remarkable document, as much a refreshing blast of reality as it is a bundle of gutted dreams, replete with bitter ironies and grandfatherly smacks of advice, all aimed squarely at the president and his inner circle.

It can be read, in part, as a catalgoue of the failings of, primarily, President Bush and his (former) Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Somehow Vice President Dick Cheney manages to avoid the bloodletting, despite the fact that he is stil insisting that not only did Saddam Hussein have WMDs (he didn't), but that he was into Al Qaeda as well (he wasn't).

The report, entitled 'The Way Forward' (not A Way Forward, but The Way Forward) is run through with an anxious tremor at the events still to come in Iraq, when both the Sunni and Shiite regional powers are expected to ramp up the protection of their tribal masses as they try to lay claim to a few trillion dollars worth of Iraqi oil, setting the scene for a much wider monstrously genocidal war that that will take the lives of millions of people.

No wonder Bush's father was in near hysterical tears yesterday. He must have read the report before it was handed over to his son.

Some key findings :

Conditions in Iraq are "grave and deteriorating," with the prospect that a "slide toward chaos" could topple the U.S.-backed government and trigger a regional war unless the United States changes course and seeks a broader diplomatic and political solution involving all of Iraq's neighbors....

Gee, is that all?

Ahhh, no.

(The Iraq Study Group report) warns of a humanitarian catastrophe that could spark a flood of refugees across the region, and the possible return of Iraq to dictatorial rule."Ethnic cleansing could escalate," the report says.

"The Iraqi people could be subjected to another strongman who flexes the political and military muscle required to impose order amid anarchy. Freedoms could be lost.""Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region and a change in the primary mission of US forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly," the report said.

Most controversially of all, there is a strongly worded recommendation for the United States to work with Iran and Syria to end the violence in Iraq, something the bumbling NeoCons and their Israeli hardcore allies simply do not want to do. Whatever the situation on the ground may require.

To the NeoCon nitwits of the Project For A New American Century, having to work with Syria and Iran is a flat-out defeat for the United States. Or more importantly, for them.

They lose.

And such negotiations would mean that the NeoCon warpig philosophy of pre-emption and global iron-fist domination-via-military is all but dead and buried. You don't negotiate when you strike pre-emptively at your enemies. That's the whole point. Nobody knows when they might cop it.

Negotiate with Syria and Iran?

According to the NeoCon Iraq Fantasy of the early 90s and 2000, the regimes of Syria and Iran were supposed to have toppled into irrelevancy shortly after Saddam was overthrown. The NeoCons were betting on a region-wide fallout of democratic revolutions as the old regimes fell, with Iran and Syria falling the fastest of all.

Now these regimes are the key to ending the 'War On Iraq'?

Given the ability of Iran and Syria to influence events within Iraq and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage them constructively.

In seeking to influence the behavior of both countries, the United States has disincentives and incentives available. Iran should stem the flow of arms and training to Iraq, respect Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and use its influence over Iraqi Shia groups to encourage national reconciliation.

Almost as devastating for the NeoCons is the report's recommendation, that clearly comes via Saudia Arabia, that if the United States wants to achieve any of its long-term goals in Iraq, and the Middle East in general, the US and Israel have no choice but to sort out the Palestinian problem once and for all, but not in a massacre or ethnic cleansing kind of way.

Settling the Palestinian dispute is the key issue on the minds of all the major, and minor players in the Middle East, the report claims. It is the chief greviance for the majority of Muslims and Arabs, be they Sunni or Shiites.

Fix Palestine, roll back Israeli actions that increase tensions, and the rest of the United States' job in the Middle East will be much easier to accomplish.

Most suprising of all, the report uses the redlight language that will send NeoCons and their Israeli allies into fits of fury. Three words : "Right of return".

One of the recommendations lightly details that the US could pull out the majority of its combat troops in 2008, handing over security for all 18 provinces to the Iraq government, and leaving US Army and military trainers and advisors on the ground to work with the Iraq Army.

But don't hold your breath.

President Bush has promised to take the report's recommendations "very seriously." He may or may not read it from cover to cover. It's 160 pages long, after all.

Reading through the report, you quickly realise that defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld sure knew when to quit.

Don't expect him to be fronting any news media today or tomorrow to answer the myriad of failings, the appalling acts of arogancy and sheer, breathtaking incompetency the final report reveals.

American television host Stephen Colbert has come up with an appropriate reward for Rumsfeld's tireless work at stopping the US military from getting the job done in Iraq from day one : Let's Send Rumsfeld On A Rocket To The Moon.


When you read the report, it's hard not to block the questions that keep repeating in the mind, over and over and over again :

3000 US soldiers and Marines, thousands more unofficial 'Green Card' soldiers, another 110 British troops, hundreds of American contractors and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians (amongst the many, many dead) had their lives taken from them for this result?

This is what the Coalition of the Willing has to show for all that death, hundreds of billions of dollars and the stupenduous rise of Al Qaeda off the back of the war?

What happened to the shining beacon of democracy in the Middle East?

How did it come to this?

You can read the full report by the Iraq Study Group here.

About the only good news in the whole report is that a portion of the revenue from paperback sales of the Iraq Study Group will be denoated to the National Military Family Association. It is expected to be a bestseller.


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