These changes cannot disguise the incompetence and misjudgements displayed by the U.S. civilian, military and intelligence leaderships. The military’s embedding and advisory support of Iraqi combat troops, for example, has until now been crippled by the deployment of junior officers with no previous combat experience often lacking proper cultural sensitivity and Arabic language competence. This little-reported situation bodes poorly for any expected benefit from increasing the number of such ‘advisors’. Similarly with America’s diplomatic presence in Baghdad, the ISG Report (p.92) observes: “Our embassy of 1000 has 33 Arabic speakers, just six of whom are at the level of fluency.”

Why all the fuss?

So why all the media fuss over the release of the ‘bi-partisan’ ISG Report? The Report is an exercise in damage control aiming to minimize the impact of failure in Iraq on the prevailing U.S. foreign policy status quo. It serves to deflect inquiry into the origins of this predicament: the flagrant manipulation and abuse of intelligence in the months leading up to the Iraq war; the utility of the Bush doctrine of preventive intervention; the feasibility of implanting democracy across the Islamic world; or the wisdom of an open-ended global war on terror. It provides cover for the U.S. Republican administration to adjust course in Iraq, and for a Democratic-controlled Congress to sign on and not to legislate any cut-off of funding for the war effort. American mainstream media coverage simply internalizes and promotes the basic worldview of the U.S. national security state.

The invariable factor that interferes in the planning and conduct of U.S. foreign policy comes into play here: domestic political forces. The Democratic landslide in the Nov. 7th 2006 congressional elections has led Republicans to appreciate they may lose even more congressional seats as well as the presidency in 2008 if a significant U.S. troop presence remains amidst a vicious civil war in Iraq. The tension between President Bush and his own party for positioning in the 2008 elections shall most probably determine the timing of any possible scaling-down of American troops. Already one sees signs of the U.S. blaming Iraq for its own untenable predicament, and of the coming debate over ‘Who lost Iraq?’

Quicksands

The marked rise of violent conflicts throughout the wider Middle East is unprecedented in scope and intensity. These range from the continuing success of Sunni Arab insurgency inside Iraq (40% of American casualties since March 2003 are in Anbar province), to a resurgent Taliban in southern Afghanistan, to Hizbullah’s power grab seeking the downfall of Lebanon’s pro- U.S. anti-Syrian government, to an ascendant Iran projecting influence through the region and veiled threats by the U.S. or Israel to strike at Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities. From this flux, a new status quo may eventually emerge, but acute birth-pangs could well result in a still-birth amidst bloody regional agony.

The states directly affected by the expanding conflict inside Iraq are now prudently initiating their own efforts to contain these dangers with renewed commitment to Iraq’s territorial unity, realizing that the U.S. is incapable of effectively influencing events. Syria exchanges ambassadors with Iraq; Iraqi president Jalal Talabani visits Tehran; Turkish premier Erdogan visits Baghdad and then Damascus. A serious complication is the abrupt resignation of Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Prince Turki al-Faisal amid signs of internal disputes over the Kingdom’s Iraq policy, coupled with a provocative call by leading Wahhabi ulama for Sunni Arabs to actively oppose the rise of Iraqi Shi‘a power.