“Democrats should know that they can count on European Socialists for support.”

So stated Portuguese Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates at the European Socialist Party conference held in Oporto, Portugal this week, which was attended by Democrat Party Chair Howard Dean and Europe’s leading socialist politicians and several leaders of leftist governments. According to Reuters, former Danish Prime Minister Poul Rasmussen, now president of the European Socialist Party, told Dean, "We are not anti-American, we want the real America, your America.”

If by the “real America,” the European leftists mean the America that values consensus over self-defense; deference to its enemies over loyalty to its friends; and the outsourcing of its foreign policy to bipartisan commissions, the E.U. and the U.N., it appears they didn’t have to wait until Dean’s Democrats take power next month to get their wish. The James Baker-Lee Hamilton Iraq Study Group report issued last week is as accurate a blueprint for returning to the “real America” as it gets.

I have read the report's executive summary and enough of its assessments and recommendations to get a sense of the priority it places on negotiation, diplomacy and deal-making over principal, national security and military victory. This is not to say that one cannot cherry-pick suggestions and recommendations here and there that are reasonable and appropriate. But overall, the document seems quaint at best, dangerous at worst and cynical at its core.

The report is quaint in that it completely ignores the realities and imperatives of the post-9/11 world. Its orientation is captured by one sentence in the executive summary that, most likely inadvertently, contains the central buzzwords associated with ‘‘realpolitick” as practiced by the Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft crowd in the old days: “The United States should immediately launch a diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region.” (emphasis mine). Never mind that the much-vaunted “stability” that was the mainstay of Middle-East policy for decades masked, or worse, created, the very pathologies that led to the Islamist threat we now face over there and elsewhere. The Baker commission doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of that threat, much less recognize that it warrants a fresh look at the way we have done business in that part of the world.

(At least I agree with the word “offensive” in the above-referenced sentence, inasmuch as that sums up my feelings about the report as a whole.)

In calling for a regional “support group” of Iraq’s neighbors (which would not include Israel, and not because it doesn’t share a border with Iraq) and for “constructive engagement” with Iran and Syria, the authors either ignore the Bush Doctrine or pretend that it has been suspended. Whether or not the report’s authors agree with it, and regardless of whether it has been followed faithfully by the administration that invented it, the Bush Doctrine (you know, the one that says “you’re either with us or against us”) is still the conceptual framework in which our foreign policy operates. As properly understood, the doctrine clearly precludes negotiations of the sort the ISG report advocates with the sort the report advocates negotiating with.

If “quaint” means anything, it means “old-fashioned,” and there can be little doubt that with its emphasis on accommodation with our enemies, the ISG report qualifies.

(Dictionary.com also defines “quaint” as “skillfull and clever.” The report is certainly that, at least in its packaging and marketing, which one would expect from “wise men” of the caliber and vintage of the ISG panel (whose average age I gather is about 75—talk about quaint). Its pronouncements seem purposeful and precise, except they are mostly qualified by conditional words like “could” and “should” and “if”, as in “if [these recommendations] are effectively implemented” and “if the Iraqi government moves forward…” This leaves its authors plenty of room to blame those responsible for following (or ignoring) their recommendations when things don’t work out as hoped. After all, the Smartest Lawyers in the America gotta have wiggle room.)

And here is where the cynical part comes in. The report is suggestive in almost all areas concerning what ‘s expected of Iraq and its Arab neighbors. Iran and Syria “should” be engaged by the U.S. (we’ll come back to that in a second). Iran “should” stem the flow of arms and training to Iraq. Syria “should” control its borders with Iraq. The Iraqis “should” accelerate responsibility for its own security, etc. But to prove beyond serious doubt that the report’s central thesis is that the Jews are the root cause of regional chaos in the Levant, the report turns mandatory: “There must be a renewed and sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts…which must include direct talks with, by and between Israel, Lebanon, Palestinians (those who accept Israel’s right to exist) and Syria.” 

As everyone should know by now, the term "comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace" is diplo-speak for "Israel must retreat behind indefensible borders in exchange for pledges not to destroy it by its enemies whose words have proven to mean nothing anyway."  The Baker-Hamilton group is eager to elicit from Islamic fanatics words of peace that they (the fanatics) have no intention of honoring while ignoring pledges to annihilate Israel (and the West) that the fanatics have every intention to uphold. Let us know when you locate those Israel-accepting Palestinians, Secretary Baker. 

That Baker and his cohorts would offer up Israel as a sacrifice for the sake of their beloved “stability” and “international consensus” is not terribly surprising, given Baker’s role in leaning on Israel to accept the Madrid talks in 1992 that led to the Oslo accords in 1994 that led to…well, you get the point. But what’s surprising and alarming is the degree to which these folks have not just wedded themselves to the policies of the early 90s, but appear to have slept through history during the 15 years since:

Although U.S.-Syrian relations are at a low point, both countries have important interests that could be enhanced if they were to establish some common ground on how to move forward. This approach worked effectively in the early 1990s. In this context, Syria’s national interests in the Arab-Israeli dispute are important and can be brought in to play.

Hey, fellas. Let me give you some possible reasons that relations with Syria are at a “low point”: (1) Syria’s repression of its majority Sunni and minority Christian populations (2) Syria’s funding, training and supplying of Hezbollah (3) Syria’s continued hegemony in Lebanon, including its assassinations of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and politicians like Pierrre Gemayel, (4) Syria’s unwillingness to close off its borders with Iraq and stop cross-border shipments of arms, material and personnel (5) Syria’s alliance with Iran, which is clearly supporting the Shia terrorists in Iraq and providing money and arms with which to kill our Iraqi allies and our own servicemen (6) Syria’s bellicose threats to eliminate Israel if it doesn’t unconditionally surrender the Golan heights, and (7) Syria’s thumbing its nose at not just the U.S. but the U.N. and its patron France in refusing to cooperate in the investigation of the murders of the aforementioned Lebanese politicians.

Of course all this happened in the interregnum since Baker was in charge, so he may have missed them. And so the report continues:

Recommendation 12. The United States and the Support Group should encourage and persuade Syria of the merit of [contributing to the stability of Iraq] as follows….Syria can control its border with Iraq…Syria can establish hotlines to exchange information with the Iraqis…Syria can increase its political and economic cooperation with Iraq…

Of course, Syria can. And I can double my alimony payments to my ex-wife. But I won’t, because it’s not in my interests to do so. And neither is it in Syria’s interests to stabilize Iraq, a point the report itself makes only a few pages earlier, in its “assessment:”

Syria is also playing a counterproductive role. Iraqis are upset about what they perceive as Syrian support for efforts to undermine the Iraqi government …like Iran, Syria is content to see the United States tied down in Iraq.

This is the same Syria that the report says thinks will help us stabilize Iraq? And these folks are the “realists.” Jeez.

And so it goes throughout the report. There are glimpses of clear-eyed analysis (“Iran is content to see the United States tied down in Iraq” and “engaging with Iran is problematic”) followed by nonsensical and goofy conclusions (“Iran’s interest would not be served by a failure of U.S. policy in Iraq…”). And that’s what makes the report dangerous.

Dangerous because it is likely that a majority of the foreign policy establishment, almost all the Democrats, more than a few Republicans and virtually 100% of the mainstream media in Washington and New York will hail the ISG report as though it were the tablets brought down by Moses, and will insist (as Baker reportedly has) that the recommendations be adopted as a whole. While it is anyone’s guess what the President will do (my guess is he will give it lip service and not much more), the very fact that a report as shallow, cynical and fanciful as this one is given so much credence by our policy makers and opinion makers 5 years after 9/11 is frightening.

The report is not a prescription for victory against our enemies, or even for “success” in the Middle East. It is a romance novel that in its unrelenting nostalgia for the good old days of stability and diplomatic niceties engages in the fiction that if only we are nice to our adversaries they will keep the oil flowing and leave us alone.

If serving up Israel to our enemies as Baker and company seem to recommend would accomplish the desired result, one could pass the report's authors off merely as craven. That such an act of appeasement would not only be bad for the Jews but would also hasten our enemies’ victory over the U.S. and the West makes the authors of the ISG report delusional as well.