Politics: ISG FAQ by Dean Barnett

Dean Barnett has FAQ about the recently released Iraq Study Group report. Sure seems like the ISG wasn't going to be all that useful from the start.

I'd recommend you read the whole thing. However, if you want the highlights, below are the items that jumped out at tme.

I had assumed (my bad) that the ISG was a Congressionally sponsored project. Alas it was not. Excerpt:

Something called the United States Institute for Peace formed the Iraq Study Group after being prodded to do so by "interested members of Congress."

On how these commission often work he said this:

4) If some private group formed the Commission, why was it given such wide deference by all political actors?

That’s really a puzzler. Normally you appoint one of these blue-ribbon commissions when everyone knows what the right thing to do is but no one has the political stones to step forward and do it. So both major parties form a bi-partisan commission to study the matter and reach the conclusions that everyone with half-a-brain has already reached. In the process, everyone gets political cover.

On why this project was more or less doomed from the start ...

Because there’s no consensus among thinking people about what needs to be done in Iraq. Even on the left and on the right, there are sharp intramural skirmishes on the matter. So the Study Group’s search for a consensus was pointless.
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These are estimable people who hungered for a re-entry into the political limelight. For chrissakes, they arranged a photo-shoot at Vanity Fair to coincide with the Report’s release. While they may not have received financial compensation for their efforts, they received for them what is an even higher form of payment - access back to the center stage of national events.

Barnett felt is was a missed opportunity ...

... the report could have been so much more. It could have dealt with the serious menace of Radical Islam - it didn’t. It could have honestly appraised Iranian ambitions - it didn’t. It could have identified the U.N.’s fundamental uselessness - it didn’t.
.........
The Study Group thought their mandate was the same as the typical bi-partisan blue ribbon commission which is to "find" a pre-agreed upon consensus. Here, they felt the pre-agreed upon consensus was, regarding the war in Iraq: "Make it end!!!"

But problematically, the Iraq war could end tomorrow but our problems with the Islamists in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc. would continue and worsen unless we forcefully addressed them. Given the prominence of the Study Group, it could have actually done a world of good and talked to people like Bernard Lewis and cautioned the country that regardless of what happens in Iraq - victory, defeat or stalemate - the struggle is just beginning.