Dennis Ross offers us "one last chance for a stable Iraq," but doesn't produce anything of the sort:
we should do three things. First, we should declare the surge a success and announce that we will negotiate a timetable for our withdrawal with the Iraqi government. This would give Iraqis input into the timing and shape of the withdrawal and doesn't simply impose it on them. Second, we should set a date for the convening of a national reconciliation conference. Unlike previous such conferences, it should not be permitted to disband until agreement has been reached. Success in this conference would mean greater flexibility in our approach to the timetable on withdrawal, and a stalemated conference would produce the opposite. To increase the prospects of the conference working, we should suggest that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who has credibility across sectarian lines, play a brokering role in setting the agenda of the conference and its ongoing negotiations.
Finally, we should talk to Iraq's neighbors about how to contain the conflict. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey all have little desire to see Iraq either fragment or be convulsed to the point that they get increasingly sucked into the conflict. I have my doubts about whether the neighbors will ever agree on what they want for Iraq, but they can agree on what they fear about it.
That seems like a not-bad way of getting out of Iraq. Insofar as you need to leave with some level of rearguard flexibility and some type of plan that protects you from cut-and-run accusations, Ross's approach -- or retreat, I guess -- seems perfectly adequate.
But there's nothing in here -- genuinely, literally nothing -- that suggests any solution to the problems bedeviling that country. Nothing in here proposes a solution to the intra-Shiite fighting, and the battle between Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps. Nothing in here solves the more serious problems of enduring enmity between Sunnis and Shiites. Nothing in here splits oil revenues, or disarms militias, or does anything at all. There's a promise to lock all the participants -- and I wonder who Roos means by that -- in a room and demand national reconciliation, but if it were really as easy as this McCain style "cut the bullshit," it would've been don already. This is the language and atmospherics of statecraft without an actual plan for resolving differences. That's probably a good idea for withdrawal. But it's not going to leave us a stable Iraq. If the only problem in that country were that no one had sought to hold a meeting, this issue would be considerably easier than it actually is.
Incidentally, Joe Klein's column this week is really very good on these issues...
