Nothing new about this report that we don't already know. Baker is a Republican. Now, that's a breakthrough! If this report had come out before the election, Republicans might still control Congress. Who said "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"? As every good comic knows, timing is everything. And again, Republicans are off the beat. When these guys go dancing they have two left feet. It looks like more bloodshed ahead. Bin Laden is warming up back stage.

Bush will listen to reason about Iraq around the same time as Charles Dobson applauds gay marriage, James Inhofe acknowledges the fact of global warming, and Pat Robertson checks himself into an insane asylum. Your article fails to identify the true underlying cause of Bush's Iraq psychosis: his religion. The fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity that all four men share is poison to the mind. When you devote yourself to a religion that eschews all reason, compassion and self-doubt, you tend to lose the capacity for these things in all other aspects of your life as well. In other words, when you believe that Jesus walked on water and that Noah collected two of every species on a giant wooden ark, it's very easy to believe the situation in Iraq is just dandy.

For those of us who haven't lobotomized ourselves for Christ, there is a silver lining in the ongoing catastrophe of the past six years: political Christianity, ascendant in the 1980s and 90s, has thoroughly discredited itself for generations to come.

Exxon-Mobil and the rest of those Texas oil idiots are running out of oil reserves. Their goal in Iraq was to seize the oilfields and have a lot of oil that costs a buck or so a barrel to pump out of the ground, and sell it at world market prices. They would then have enough money to invest in whatever the next big energy source is, probably nuclear plus oil sands and shale. Eisenhower was on to them in the '50's. Texas was (and still is) a state that is devoid of any social services or social safety net. The oil barons would still like to have the rest of the US adopt their political agenda. They just cannot accept the loss of Iraq, their last best hope for continued wealth and power. Idiot boy loves those guys. They still have enough wealth to have bought most of the Republican Party and a lot of Democrats, so change is not going to be easy. The next few months are going to be very interesting.

I am afraid that if he won't listen and do. . . then the Republicans need to get the majority of them together and take an impeachment motion to the floor. I want the Republicans to do this as the Democrats will not because the Democarts are trying to bring some honor back to the house and think it would be considered "tit for tat" if the Democrats brought the charges. If the Republicans bring charges, I hope that they bring charges against Chaney at the same time. Goodness only knows they have broken enough laws that if it was me I would be put way for three lifetimes.

Sarah Pope

Premium Salon member

Depends on how you define victory. Prior to intervention, Islamic extremists were killing Jews and Americans. Now they're killing each other.

You do the math.

So, they've expanded their killing base and this is a good thing? Now that they're killing Iraq citizens as well as Jews and Americans this invasion was a success? This is your justification of the war?!? I am truly beyond words...

I gather from this report that the reason ( which changes moment by moment) for being in Iraq is not being questioned, because if the logic is faulty an immediate withdrawal would be the only course of action. That would be a stinging defeat for Bush, and for those who put their bipartisan signature to this document, shame on you.

As recently as 2000 a contingent of Democrats thought Iraq was a fixable problem, but the State of Ohio nixed the deal. The war then became the hardest thing James Baker ever had to deal with, (his words). John Kerry thought he could manage it, but lifeguards are taught to rescue people who don't want to be rescued, in that respect Baker is dead on.

The war (long over) should have never been this hard. It goes back to the unilateral rush to invade the country. In the runup to the war young Bush couldn't keep his lips off the word, Iraq. Now he is being handed a solution which allows Republicans, (and Democrats too) to wash their hands of the whole thing, in a bipartisan way. Being an obsessive-compulsive, Bush is still having trouble with all this collective hand wringing. Is there something he is supposed to be doing about Iraq? The season of the year, our savior? Does Pontius Pilate ring a bell?

Ed Meese, is it possible he can do good?

I still remember what he said back when he was AG: "Why do we need presumption of innocence when the vast majority of people accused of crimes turn out to be guilty?"

These are the rescuers, eh? Things are that bad.

Haven't read Baker's report, but the recommendations mentioned here sound so vague I don't see what the fuss is about. "Maybe pull out some troops in a couple years" is not exactly a stunningly insightful bit of advice. Bush himself and a thousand congressmen have said many times that they want to do exactly that. This kind of rhetoric doesn't mean squat. As for negotiating with Iran and Syria, that's pretty pathetic. What could the US possibly offer them? And in exchange for what?

I guess I'm supposed to be impressed that some fancy blue-ribbon muckety-mucks are admitting, in their ridiculous mealy-mouthed way and at least a year after the fact, that the US has lost the Iraq War. Yeah, that's some brilliant foreign policy analysis.

I believe that you're correct and couldn't have said it better myself. I know I'm going off topic here but 8,000 clergy molestation cases has got to say something about the state of the "Christian" union. Very funny!