JAMES BAKER: BUSHWHACKED AGAIN

He is one of our very best and most experienced elder statesmen of our country.
Ran the Presidential campaigns for Presidents George Bush Sr., Ford and Reagan. Served as chief of staff under Presidents Bush and Reagan. Also served as Secretary of State under Pres. Bush (Sr.), and Secretary of the Treasury under Pres. Reagan. He recently served as personal envoy of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

He received his share of criticism in his days, but came away with the reputation of a "Teflon man," someone who never seemed to have anything stick to him. So when he was appointed to head the committee advising President G.W. Bush on the situation in Iraq, it was a natural choice. The committee has been meeting for quite sometime now.

Baker, never one to mince words, was asked if we would ever achieve a "military victory" in Iraq. Here is the quote from Baker:

If you mean by "military victory" an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible.

Sobering words, aren't they? Over the course of his political career, Baker has been asked to step in and handle the dirty work for many a GOP President, but this job tops them all. Can any committee come up with a plausible solution for a war that has brought Iraq to a (seemingly) inevitable civil war, encouraged terrorism throughout the region, and divided our country so badly the President's approval rating hovers around the 30 percentiles?

I believe it was a writer for Slate magazine that coined the phrase, "James Baker: Presidential Janitor." Well this time he has inherited a mess no one man can clean up. A mess? This is a Hazmat spill of epic proportions.

You had better order some more Teflon, my friend. But no pressure. Lebanon is on its last legs. The Palestinians are as cranky as ever. Iraq is in the middle of a civil war, and the motorcade of the Iraqi chief was just stoned by his own people. Iraqis are armed to the teeth for self protection. Gaza is heating up again, and Iran wants to help when we get out. We are sinking headfirst into a unwinable quagmire of violence and economic dispair.

History will show that by refusing to wait until the U.N. inspectors finished their jobs, President Bush has made the single biggest error of any modern-day President, the reprocussions of which may extend over the course of the next century. Our days of being the only super-power are over. Our days of being the healthiest economy are over. Unfortunately, the Bush administrations days are not over. And, they have one more son.

My opinion?

Get someone they respect into the Middle east (Bush, Sr. and Clinton? Baker? Powell?, Kissinger?, etc.--hell, send them all if you want) and get close to the King of Jordan, the only ruler making sense. He could help if he wanted to.

Get over it, any refusal to at least meet with the heads of Syria and Iran will not be looked at kindly by the rest of the world. What can it possibly hurt? If 60 Minutes can talk to him, you can too.

Keep Sec. of State Rice out of the region (for god sakes, do you really think any country in the region respects the opinion of a woman? It is wrong, but get a clue).

Pull back troops out of the hotspots and let them go at it (after giving the innocent civilians a chance to leave with a decent time frame warning).

Monitor the borders only, & let any Middle Eastern country willing to, go into the hot spots and regain control.

Stop all rebuilding efforts immediately.

Stop all non-military funding today, period.

Give the everyone a time frame for full American troop withdrawal (just move them to Jordan, Israel, Afghanistan and Turkey). If Saudi Arabia and Jordan doen't step in, all hell breaks loose, and that is something no one wants, especially an OPEC nation.