• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Analysis: White House Warms to ISG Report

Council on Foreign Relations

May 24, 2007
Prepared by: Lionel Beehner

The Bush administration is retooling its Iraq war strategy. U.S. diplomats will soon sit across the table from their Iranian counterparts, as they did recently with the Syrians, to discuss ways Iraq’s neighbors can play a more positive role. Washington reportedly has also invited the United Nations (Guardian) to have a more direct presence in Iraq, including a larger role for its humanitarian missions and even the potential creation of a UN command. Finally, once the surge of troops into Baghdad tapers down, the U.S. military will increasingly look to shift its role in Iraq away from combat operations and into training and advisory missions (WashPost).

If any of these steps sound familiar, it’s because many of them were recommendations from the Iraq Study Group report, the blue-ribbon panel commissioned by Congress to find an alternative strategy on Iraq. Coolly received by the White House after its publication last December, the report has been dusted off and given a second look by Bush administration officials, as Congress ratchets up the pressure to bring the war in Iraq to a more immediate close. “As I have constantly made clear, the recommendations of Baker-Hamilton appeal to me,” President Bush told reporters. The policy readjustments reflect political timetables in Washington, not Baghdad. “The goal,” writes David Ignatius in the Washington Post, “is an approach that would have sufficient bipartisan support so it could be sustained even after the Bush administration leaves office in early 2009.” But the shift in policy also takes into account the political realities in Iraq and what the new head of Central Command, Adm. William J. Fallon, admitted recently: “Reconciliation isn't likely in the time we have available.”

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.