Does Bush Mean It?

"'The president has an opportunity to seize this moment and build a bipartisan foundation to address the deep, deep problems in Iraq and the deep divisions over Iraq in this country,' said Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a Vietnam War veteran whose foreign policy ideas are respected in Congress. 'This presents an exit strategy for the president, for all of us.'"

And yet: "The administration seems to have distanced itself from the commission in recent weeks. White House officials were never wildly enthusiastic about a group co-chaired by a key figure, Baker, from the administration of the president's father. But there was hope that it might be a useful vehicle to provide political cover to do what the White House was interested in doing anyway.

"As details of the commission's deliberations surfaced, including ideas long rejected by Bush, that optimistic view seems to have faded in the White House. By yesterday, Bush aides figured the commission was helpful mainly as a way of marginalizing more radical proposals by war opponents, such as a rapid troop withdrawal or partitioning Iraq."

Bill Plante reports for CBS News that "this president may not be in much of a hurry to accept Baker's ideas about that -- or much else. Asked if Baker would help implement the report, a spokesman for Mr. Bush said, 'Jim Baker can go back to his day job.'"

Bush's State of Mind

Mark Silva writes in the Chicago Tribune: "With his unwavering insistence that U.S. military forces must stand, fight and 'win' in Iraq, President Bush has taken on the look of the last man standing.

"Both inside and outside the White House, voices are calling for at least a new war strategy -- and at most a target date for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But Bush, while acknowledging frustration with the progress of the U.S. mission, so far has refused to fundamentally alter it. . . .

"'I just think this president simply doesn't want to believe how bad things have gotten,' said Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the non-partisan Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'Parallels to Vietnam are always terribly dangerous, but you are beginning to see in George Bush some striking resemblance to Lyndon Johnson. Both became failed presidents and tragic figures long before they left office.'"

Initial Coverage

Peter Baker, Dafna Linzer and William Branigin write for washingtonpost.com: "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, according to a bipartisan panel that gave its recommendations to President Bush and Congress today. . . .

"The study group recommends that the United States withdraw nearly all of its combat units from Iraq by early 2008, sharply reducing the current troop level of more than 140,000 while leaving behind tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel to advise, train and embed with Iraqi forces."

Some Backstory

In this morning's Washington Post, Baker and Linzer wrote: "Although the study group will present its plan as a much-needed course change in Iraq, many of its own advisers concluded during its deliberations that the war is essentially already lost, according to private correspondence obtained yesterday and interviews with participants. The best the commission could put forward would be the 'least bad' of many bad options, as former ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer wrote.

"An early working draft from July stated that 'there is even doubt that any level of resources could achieve the administration's stated goals, given the illiberal and undemocratic political forces, many of them Islamic fundamentalists, that will dominate large parts of the country for a long time.'"

That passage is nowhere to be found in the final report.