Iraq Group's Report Contains a Poisonous Suggestion

The Baker report is what every American policy-maker, Republican or Democrat, is lusting after, as if it contained the Ten Commandments on what to do in Iraq.

Drafted by the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission of policy elders — chaired jointly by the Bush family consiglière and former secretary of state, James Baker, and a veteran Democratic lawmaker, Lee Hamilton — the report contains not a silver bullet but a poisonous one: a suggestion to engage Iran and Iraq in talks, ending a long boycott of the two terrorist states.

It is about as disingenuous a solution to the problem as the flawed reasoning that led us into the war in the first place.

Is there anyone in the American diplomatic establishment who can convincingly point to one shred of logic — except fear — that would induce either country to respect Iraq's independence or integrity?

Syria's assassinations, corruption, and constant manipulation of Lebanon over the past three decades are now part of the historical record. Iran's own record of sponsoring terror groups and mayhem, as well as its current effort to acquire nuclear weapons, is equally dismal. In fact, the two states are hovering over Iraq's borders like hyenas waiting for a feast.

The other, equally ineffectual suggestion in the Baker findings is to convene a regional conference of Arabs, Persians, and Turks to discuss the situation in Iraq.

As a veteran of many such conferences — starting with the ill-fated 1990 Madrid peace conference, with the same Mr. Baker presiding, to the Oslo accords that brought Yasser Arafat and Israel's Likud government together — I can vouch that they lead nowhere, as we can plainly see in the Palestinian Arab territories 16 years later.

On Friday, the editor in chief of The New York Sun, Seth Lipsky, noted in an article about Vietnam a parallel to Iraq. The agreement that laid the groundwork for an American withdrawal from Vietnam, he noted, rested on a promise by North Vietnam to respect the South's integrity.

"The stage for the tragedy was set only months after the Norwegians, in late 1973, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger and North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho, for the peace accord they struck earlier that year," he wrote. "The North Vietnamese regime, in violation of that very accord, immediately started rebuilding its forces in the South."

Now, which brave diplomat, including the very skilled Mr. Baker, can assert that a goodwill agreement with Syria or Iran will fare any better?

A serious search for an Iraq solution must take into account the facts on the ground today, three years after the invasion. Across the Mesopotamian and Levantine landscapes, from Iran, down to Iraq, on to Lebanon, the Persian Gulf Arab states, and well into Syria, a Shiite-led power is stretching its shadow like an ink spot on blotting paper. This Shiite shadow is secure in its religious base among the ayatollahs of Tehran, Baghdad, and Najaf, and the 1 million-strong Shiite community of Lebanon, with its tributaries among Syria's strange ruling Alawites and the pools of Shiites inside Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.

Unlike America's anxious Democrats and Republicans, that vast Shiite establishment is in no hurry and is certainly under no pressure. Time is playing into its hands as Iraq disintegrates, along with America's patience.

There are serious solutions for Iraq. One is for American troops to retreat to firm bases inside the country, including the friendly Kurdish enclave up north and the borders with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. This would halve the American troop requirement by taking the troops off the streets of Iraqi cities while focusing on Iran and Syria. Such a retreat would inevitably require a robust policy of military retribution — via an air campaign against the two countries' oil facilities, for example — when they increase their meddling, as they will surely be tempted to do. Senator McCain's proposal to send in more troops is another approach, albeit one that is no longer attainable.

In any case, leaving Iraq cannot translate to handing it over to Syrian-Iranian hegemony. So the road ahead is not as easy as holding useless talks, but one that involves a little more pain.