The Report further recommends that, "If the Iraqi government does not make substantial progress toward ... national reconciliation, security, and governance, the United States should reduce its political, military, or economic support for the Iraqi government."

What all this means is that the United States should make one final effort to stabilize Iraq in 2007, but if this does not succeed, it should begin to draw down its involvement there in early 2008 -- ahead of the American elections later that year.

President Bush has already indicated that he may not accept this recommendation. He and other supporters of the war effort have previously warned that an American withdrawal from Iraq before "completing the mission" will lead to negative consequences.

President Bush is certainly right about this. There will indeed be negative consequences if the United States withdraws from Iraq. Four of the most important of these will be:

First, the Iraqi civil war will intensify, especially between Arab Shiites and Arab Sunnis.

Second, whether the Bush Administration heeds the ISG's call to talk with Tehran or not, Iran is highly likely to seize upon an American withdrawal from Iraq to step up its own involvement there in support of its Iraqi Shiite allies.

Third, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and perhaps Kuwait are likely to assist Iraqi Sunni forces in order to prevent Iran and its allies from completely dominating Iraq. Their involvement, along with Iran's, raises the possibility of the Iraqi civil war turning into a regional inter-state war.

Fourth, the U.S. withdrawal will be seen -- both in America and abroad -- as a humiliating defeat. Just as occurred after the U.S. withdrawal from Indochina in 1973, this will encourage and embolden America's adversaries elsewhere.

Despite all this, the United States should indeed withdraw by early 2008 if Iraq cannot be stabilized in 2007. And it probably cannot be. Here's why:

First, as the Iraqi Study Group report pointed out, the American military presence has not been able to prevent the situation in Iraq from deteriorating. Although the Bush administration does not want to admit it, there is now a fierce civil war going on there which neighboring states, including Iran, are already intervening in. America cannot prevent groups determined to fight each other from doing so.

Second, while Iran will undoubtedly step up its involvement in Iraq after an American withdrawal, there is no reason to think that Tehran will be any more successful at pacifying that country than Washington was.

Third, while several Arab governments might aid Arab Sunnis and others inside Iraq to prevent Iran from dominating it after a U.S. withdrawal, they do not want to get involved in a war with Tehran or to directly engage in the fighting inside Iraq. Their fear of Iran will likely induce them to seek American help and protection despite their annoyance with the United States both for intervening in and then withdrawing from Iraq.

Fourth, the perception that the United States was defeated in Iraq will lead to the decline in the unfortunate fear that the Bush administration's interventionism gave rise to among so many, including America's allies, of the United States as being "the greatest threat to peace." America's adversaries will indeed celebrate what they regard as America's defeat and seize upon the opportunities they think this presents. As others fear the policies of America less and of its adversaries more, they will once again turn to the United States for help.

In other words, while the consequences of an American withdrawal from Iraq may appear to be highly detrimental to American interests, the normal operation of the balance of power in international relations will serve to mitigate its effect. Just as American overextension resulting from the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq benefited its adversaries, the overextension of its adversaries that is likely to follow an American withdrawal from Iraq will ultimately benefit America.

Mark N. Katz is a professor of government and politics at George Mason University

related report

Eye on Iraq: Jim Baker had the last laugh
Washington (UPI) Dec 8 - The recommendations of the Iraq Study Group were neither limited, timid and disappointing, as its American critics to the left have claimed, nor were they defeatist or contemptible, as Bush administration loyalists and neo conservative true believers have angrily argued.

The group led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., the long time dominant foreign policy figure among Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, recommended almost two score changes to current U.S. policies, included major shifts in global and middle east strategic direction.

The changes it recommended included boosting the number of American troops training Iraq forces fivefold. Instead of 4,000 American soldiers training Iraqi forces, as is currently the case, if the ISG's recommendations were implemented, that number would soar to 20,000. Since a U.S. combat division usually comprises 15,000 troops that would be the equivalent of dedicating more than one additional division to that task alone.

Arguably the most controversial recommendation of the group was that Washington should open up serious strategic dialogues with both Syria and Iran to avert the growing threat of chaos in the Middle East. This recommendation may alarm Saudi Arabia and Israel and has already provoked fierce denunciations of the ISG in the U.S. media. President George W. Bush Thursday made clear he was not prepared - at least not yet - to bite that particular bullet.

Nor did the president accept the panels recommendation that all U.S. combat troops be withdrawn from Iraq over the next two years when he discussed its recommendations Thursday.

Yet the man Bush has already picked as his next secretary of defense, former CIA director Robert Gates, sat on the ISG and is a decades-long close friend and former colleague of baker's. And Gates in his smoothly running and warmly received confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate this week, made clear his assessment of the problems with the war was the same as Baker and the ISG's, and was a radically different from the president's.

Further, although Bush is the formal commander-in-chief, the war in Iraq has always been run out of the Pentagon. Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, indeed, was the most hands-on, micro-managing secretary of defense in American history, more so even than the notoriously incompetent Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War 40 years ago.

Yet now, the precedent Rumsfeld set of concentrating all the strategic and tactical decision making for the Iraq War in the Office of the Secretary of Defense will play into the hands of Gates and his old ally and mentor Baker. The president and his loyal secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, lack the administrative skills and experience to run the enormous Pentagon bureaucracy and neither of them has ever had any hands on experience of directly running the armed forces of the United States. Those factors will strengthen Gates' hand.

Vice President Dick Cheney certainly had all of that during his own, highly successful four year tenure as secretary of defense for the current president's father, President George Herbert Walker Bush, from 1989 to 1993.

But Cheney is being increasingly sidelined in the administration. His key ally Rumsfeld is almost gone. Even the National Security Council is changing course on Iraq with Deputy National Security Adviser Elliot Abrams now energetically promoting cooperation with Saudi Arabia, even though the implications of that policy may be increasing tensions with the Shiite-dominated central government in Baghdad that Bush and Cheney worked so hard to create.

Much has been made of the supposedly radically different world views of Baker and Rice. It is certainly the case that Rice will never publicly defy or contradict the president on the issue of engaging Syria and Iran. But she is much more likely to embrace and implement Baker's call for the U.S government to energetically launch a new peace diplomatic offensive between Israel and the Palestinians. Here again, Baker and his commission look like playing a key role in propelling top government officials into taking highly significant new initiatives at a key moment.

James A. Baker is not the president of the United States and it is more than 14 years since he was secretary of state. But he has not lost any of his unparalleled understanding of the dynamics of policymaking at the highest levels: The way he steered his Iraq Study Group and framed its proposals is already pointing the Bush administration in radical new directions that no one imagined possible only a month ago..

related report

Analysis: Israeli slams ISG ideas
Tel Aviv (UPI) Israel, Dec 8 - A prominent Israeli analyst has warned that the new U.S. Middle Eastern policy proposed by the Iraq Study Group Wednesday poses "serious problems" to vital Israeli interests and urged Washington not to weaken its allies.

The analyst, Dore Gold, had been the diplomatic adviser to hawkish Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, and is now president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

The U.S. policy recommendations that former Secretary of State James Baker and former House member Lee Hamilton presented included suggestions designed to enlist Iranian and Syrian help in resolving the Iraqi crisis.

Gold maintained Iran and Syria would demand a heavy price for doing so. In an analysis published Friday, he noted Iran and Syria have played leading roles in de-stabilizing Iraq and in re-supplying various insurgency groups there.

The Baker-Hamilton recommendations would mean a complete about-face of Iranian and Syrian policies.

"Clearly the authors of the report have no awareness of the ideological commitment of the Iranian regime to export its revolution to Shiite communities throughout the Middle East as it seeks to achieve regional hegemony," Gold maintained.

In the 1990s, Shiite Muslim Iran sought to contain the radical Sunni Taliban regime in Afghanistan, so it cooperated with a multinational effort.

The Iraqi case is different. Iran seeks to dominate it and do so through the Shiite majority there, he noted.

Moreover, a U.S. attempt to enlist Iranian and Syrian cooperation would not be made from a position of strength. Tehran and Damascus would realize that the U.S. administration is seeking their help after they succeeded in defeating the coalition forces. Consequently, their price for cooperation would be exorbitant.

He expected Iran to seek Western acquiescence to its nuclear program. Syria may want to halt the U.N. investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, or to reassert its hegemony in Lebanon.

U.S. President George W. Bush said Thursday he would not talk to Iran unless it suspends its uranium enrichment program, nor to Damascus unless it stops interfering in Lebanon. Both should stop supporting terrorist groups, he maintained.

Gold noted the Iraq Study Group realized Iran and Syria would set high prices. That is why they recommended pressuring Israel to "return the Golan Heights." Israel occupied those strategic heights from Syria during the 1967 war.

"It appears that the Golan Heights are being used by the Iraq Study Group as an inducement to obtain cooperative Syrian behavior on Iraq," Gold maintained. He noted the report expects Syria "to use its influence with Hamas and Hezbollah" to obtain the release of the three abducted Israeli soldiers. One was kidnapped to Gaza in June and two were taken to Lebanon in July.

There is supposed to be a cessation of arms shipments to Hamas, Hezbollah, and other groups, but their offices and training camps remain open, Gold continued. He alluded to Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.

"Adoption of these policies by the Bush administration would seriously compromise the war on terrorism that the U.S. declared after 9/11," he argued.

He also slammed the suggestion that the United States support a "Palestinian national unity government." That is "tantamount to acquiescence to the Hamas role in the Palestinian political system," he argued. The United States considers Hamas a terrorist organization.

Gold's line was a tougher than Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's.

Olmert said he would "cooperate" with a national unity government, "Even if Hamas members are in it" -- if it would renounce violence, accept Israel and honor agreements with Israel.

The Baker-Hamilton premise was that "the United States will not be able to achieve its goals in the Middle East unless the United States deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict."

Hence, it advocated bold U.S. action to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. It noted there is no military solution to the dispute, that the vast majority of Israelis is tired of wars, and "when the political process breaks down there will be violence on the ground."

Israeli leaders sought to distinguish between their dispute with the Arabs and the U.S. troubles in Iraq. The problems in Iraq are "entirely independent of the controversy between us and the Palestinians," Olmert stated.

Vice Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Laureate Shimon Peres said the allies entered Iraq "without any connection to Israel; the policy is being carried out there without any connection to Israel, and the future will have no connection to Israel."

Gold argued that the attempt to describe the Arab-Israeli conflict as the main root cause for regional instability is "patently false."

What do al-Qaida attacks on Shiites in Iraq have to do with Israel? he asked. What does Israel have to do with Sudan's policy of genocide against black tribes in Darfur?

The Bush administration, he maintained, should not leave its regional allies weaker and their adversaries emboldened.

Related Links
Iraq Study Group
Iraq: The first techonology war of the 21st century