Even the Wise Men Can't Save Us in Iraq

Of all the hurdles ahead for the Baker-Hamilton group, the most daunting may prove strictly political. Many commissions have addressed technical policy issues -- say, how to better protect vulnerable U.S. embassies or other facilities worldwide. But the Iraq Study Group exists not just to solve a policy problem, but also to fill a political vacuum. To date, neither the administration nor Democrats have admitted the horrific costs of either staying in Iraq or withdrawing troops. For more than a year now, some of the top minds in the military have thought hard about how to change course in Iraq and still win, and some improvements in doctrine and training have emerged. But broadly speaking, there is no technical fix to Iraq that is lying in a musty drawer in the Pentagon. And technical answers don't address the most difficult political questions: What are U.S. interests in Iraq? How would a pullout affect U.S. interests beyond Iraq? And how many more American lives and taxpayer dollars will we risk to protect those interests?

Commissions at times fall back on politically easy answers, or simply bypass the most important questions. Despite the centrality of Iraq to the fight against terrorism, the 9/11 commission basically dodged the war altogether, but it did have time to make a host of recommendations on intelligence restructuring and first-responder radio spectrums. Similarly, the otherwise hard-hitting Robb-Silberman investigation of the intelligence community's performance with regard to Iraq's WMD programs took a dive on the key political question in the public mind: whether the White House manipulated the prewar intelligence.

For the Iraq Study Group, a similarly easy answer would be an uncritical endorsement of "handing off" security to Iraqi forces -- a policy that the Bush administration and Democrats support, and one too often discussed as a nearly magical way to prevent a collapse in Iraq while drawing down U.S. forces. Yet the Iraqi army and police are corrupt, poorly trained, and penetrated by insurgents and militias. Reforming Iraqi security forces is vital, but it is a decade-long effort. They will not be ready to assume responsibility for security in troubled areas or otherwise ease the U.S. burden in the near-term.

The two leaders of the Iraq Study Group are experienced Washington hands who do not need to worry about their findings hurting their popularity or future job prospects. They are respected across the political aisle, and each is willing to criticize his own party's positions. But because they are unlikely to find a technical fix to the Iraq war's political problems, their greatest contribution will be initiating, rather than concluding, a broader debate on how to proceed. In such a debate, the best choices will not (and should not) earn unanimity. A serious escalation is probably necessary to "win" in Iraq, and this will require hundreds of billions more dollars and hundreds of thousands more U.S. troops. If winning is too demanding and politically unfeasible, then the United States must think creatively about ways to draw down significantly while still maintaining some influence in the Iraqi snake pit.

Washington has dithered long enough rather than face these hard, unpalatable choices. At best, the Iraq Study Group will catalyze our leadership and help foster the political will to accept this painful reality. But salvation? Forget about it.

dlb32@georgetown.edu

Daniel L. Byman, an associate professor at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center, was a staff member of the 9/11 commission.