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Baker unlikely to come up with anything new

Michael Kinsley

What are the chances of James Baker's Iraq Study Group coming up with something original? Don't hold your breath.

— PHOTO: AP

Members of the Iraq Study Group arrive at the White House in Washington on Tuesday for another day of meetings.

THE BAKER commission, or the Iraq Study Group, is expected to report early next month, and is duly bouncing around, holding hearings and all the things that prestigious United States commissions do. Appointed by Congress and co-chaired by James Baker, it is hearing from British Prime Minister Tony Blair this week.

Ordinarily, a commission like this has two possible purposes: action or inaction. Sometimes a problem is referred to a commission so that it can recommend what everybody knows must be done, but no one has the nerve to propose. The commission can ram this policy down the politicians' allegedly unwilling throats. If it is bipartisan — and what fun is a commission that isn't bipartisan? — the commission also protects both parties against a stab in the back by the other.

On the other hand, sometimes a problem is referred to a commission simply to get it off the table. Action is perceived as necessary and the creation of a commission can be made to look like action.

So which is the Baker commission? It has got elements of both. Part of the idea, certainly, was to get the politicians over the hump of the election, and give them something to say in the meanwhile. ("We desperately need new ideas and fresh thinking about Iraq, and indeed the entire Middle East. I look forward to the recommendations of the Baker commission and urge them to interpret their mandate widely and boldly.") And part of the idea is to legitimise some currently unpalatable solution. But the Baker commission may be near-unique in that there is no obvious solution waiting to be imposed. People actually hope that the greybeards will come up with something that no one has previously thought of.

Unattractive idea

Good luck. The chance that this group will come up with something original is not enormous. It's a nutty, and not very attractive, idea to turn an urgent issue of war and peace over to a commission. Commissions have usually been trotted out for long-running social problems; going to war is something that ought to be decided by the people we elect. In recent decades Congress has virtually abandoned its duty to make the decisions about when U.S. soldiers are sent to kill and die — presidents have foolishly claimed that authority. And now we have a President who is stuck with a war he insisted on and a citizenry that has no interest in it.

If we had wanted the U.S. to be run by Mr. Baker, we had our chance. He was interested in running for President in 1996, but discovered that his interest was not widely shared. Although he has held a variety of government posts, from Deputy Secretary of Commerce under Gerald Ford to Secretary of State under Bush the elder, and has all the trappings of consequence and wisdom, such as a Presidential Medal of Freedom and his own institute for public policy at Rice University, Mr. Baker is essentially a political operative. His place in history is Florida 2000, where he secured the presidency for George W. Bush. Reporters were awed by his brilliance and ruthlessness. History may be less admiring.

Being a Washington Wise Man does not require much wisdom. Mr. Baker has a "conviction," said a columnist on Sunday in The Washington Post, "that Iraq is the central foreign policy issue confronting the U.S." Wow. Now there's an insight. Actually, it is a nice insight into the Baker mentality — that he can apparently imagine a war that is killing young Americans by the hundreds but is not our central foreign policy issue. Mr. Baker also believes that "the only way to address that issue successfully is to first build a bipartisan consensus." Now that is a conviction you can sink your teeth into. People like Mr. Baker always favour a bipartisan consensus. They don't really believe in politics, which is to say they don't really believe in democracy. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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