Robert Zelnick

During the Iran hostage crisis a generation ago, I asked a senior State Department official what he would recommend to extricate the country from its predicament. “There is no good answer,” he replied. “The trick is not getting into these situations.”

Former Secretary of State James Baker, his Co-chair, Lee Hamilton, and their distinguished Iraq Study Group (ISG), must have echoed that sentiment often. But they persevered and came up with 79 recommendations designed to end the US combat role in the country. For that they deserve credit, and for starkly debunking suggestions by Bush administration apologists that the war was somehow going better than accounts in the media might suggest. No, this is a war of unyielding Sunni insurgents, murderous Shiite militias, a dangerous sprinkling of international jihadists, mounting United States and Iraqi casualties, and a staggering price tag of $400 billion to date, en route to a possible final tab of $3 trillion.

For all its insight regarding where the Iraq effort stands and how things can get even worse, the report’s worth will ultimately be judged by two groups of proposals designed to make possible a US withdrawal unburdened by mission failure. The first is a diplomatic offensive calculated to enlist key states in the area to support and assist an independent Iraq, encourage an end to the insurrection on generous terms and, of course, to cease all mischief of their own. Contrary to established administration policy, Iran and Syria would both be invited to the table.

The second would transform the United States military role from combat to training and support for Iraqi forces, including a substantial US component embedded with host country troops. By early 2008, the plan envisions a complete end to the US combat role with a drawdown of US forces to about half their current number of roughly 145,000. My problem with both plans is that neither seems likely to work.

The Iraq Support Group panel urges the administration to re-energise the Israeli peace talks with Palestinians who accept Israel’s existence. Peace talks are not a synonym for peace, and unless carefully prepared, they can lead instead to war. Witness the failure at Camp David in 2000 and the resulting human carnage of the second intifada.

Does any Palestinian today have both the will and the political power to negotiate a deal with Israel that waives the so-called right of return for refugees from the 1948 war and their descendants? Will the region be more content with a failed Camp David-type spectacular, or an effort that begins with such modest confidence-building measures as a ceasefire accord, an easing of travel restrictions, and selective prisoner releases?

In any event, the bridge between Israelis and Palestinians is fragile enough to barely support the weight of its own parties. Adding to it the weight of a conflict between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq is simply not smart.