by James Fallows

A Turning Point

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Everything detailed and authoritative that needs to be said about this report has already been said, including by my friend and Atlantic colleague Robert Kaplan immediately after its release. In the set-up to his comments, Kaplan concisely outlines the way that people who held differing views before the war (as he and I did—he and Michael Kelly, the two staff members with the deepest and most direct experience in the region, were the ones most passionately in favor of forced “regime change,” while most others at the magazine were against it) can deal with the undisputed disaster that American presence in Iraq has become:

The mistakes made in Iraq since 2003 were so many and so serious that it is reasonable to argue that toppling Saddam Hussein was a wise decision, incompetently handled in its occupation phase. It is also possible to argue that the frequency and magnitude of the mistakes indicate a hubristic flaw in the concept of regime change itself, which I supported. Thus it is with humility and open-mindedness that I read the report of the Iraq Study Group.

Kaplan would, I assume, still make the first, “wise decision” argument; I was and am in the “hubristic flaw” camp. Because we can’t re-run the invasion and occupation, we’ll never know which of these views is correct. But obviously the outcome of this argument—whether Iraq was a good idea badly handled, or a bad idea that incompetence made even worse—will have a bearing on future American policy.

That’s for later. For now, three points:

1) There is essentially no chance that the Baker-Hamilton/Iraq Study Group report will be remembered for what it spends most time discussing: the next steps to take in Iraq. Partly that is because there is essentially no chance that the Bush Administration will adopt all or even a few of its 79 recommendations. (Jordan Tama, a former assistant to co-chair Lee Hamilton, explains some of the reasons why.) The more fundamental reality is that any situation as complicated, fast-changing, and grim as Iraq makes any long-term plan subject to constant overhaul and adjustment. To be more precise: if a long-term plan is not overhauled and revised as reality changes, it will lead to disaster, as we have seen.

So even if the Group’s action plan had been the best possible plan the day it went to press, it would have been out of date the moment it appeared. This is because of day-by-day changes in the situation of the Iraqi government, in dealings with Iran and Syria, in insurgent operations, and in a hundred other variables. A year from now, not even the panel members will remember what the 79 points were.

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