Report seeks to shore up a failed system

Ralph Peters:

THE difference between the child-killers in the Middle East 2,000 years ago and those today is that Herod's men rode into Bethlehem to preserve a threatened political system, while the terrorists we face in Iraq seek to destroy a government in their god's name.

The Iraq Study Group doesn't get it.

Today's butchers are far more merciless, indiscriminate and dangerous. For Herod's henchmen, killing was a job. For today's faith-fueled fanatics, slaughtering the innocents is doing Allah's will. Our modern magis' negotiations won't fix Iraq, no matter what gifts they bring.

Former Secretary of State James Baker and his panelists are trying to shore up the failing regional system that their generation designed. Released yesterday, their report doesn't offer "a new way forward." Its recommendations echo past failures. And it shows no sense of how gravely the world has changed.

The report doesn't offer a plan, but a muddle of truisms and truly bad ideas.

To stay with that Christmas metaphor just a bit longer, the Flight into Egypt has been replaced with the destructive folly of recommending a flight back to Palestine. Of all the many retro proposals scattered throughout the report, the notion that the road to peace in Baghdad runs through the West Bank just may be the worst.

Certainly, the most perverse: By tying Iraq to Palestine, Baker makes the problem immeasurably tougher, not easier. The Palestinian problem isn't the cause of all that's gone wrong, just another symptom. If Iraq can't be fixed without resolving the Palestinian issue, then the answer is that Iraq can't be fixed.

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After 60 years of failure, we should have figured out that the Middle East's problems can't be solved through another round of negotiations. But diplomacy is the opium of our governing elite. They'd file a "nonpaper" with Satan over the temperature in hell.

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Asking for help from Iran and Syria would only embolden them. And the last thing we need to do is to further encourage Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his belief that Iran and the Shia faith are predestined to dominate the region. As for Syria, Bashar Assad needs a whipping, not a reward.

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The report has been more warmly received by the cult of bipartisanship. George Patton said that a poor plan violently executed was better than a perfect plan that was never executed. This appears to be close to no plan at all. It is certainly not a plan for victory. That is why it should be rejected.