http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL16Ak08.html Dec 16, 2006
US roots in Iraq too deep to pull
By Michael Schwartz
Even if most of the commentary on the Iraq Study Group (ISG) continues to be negative, one can nevertheless look forward to highly publicized policy changes in the near future that rely for their justification on this report, or on one of the several others recently released, or on those currently being prepared by the Pentagon, the White House and the National Security Council.
This is not, however, good news for those who want the US to end its war of conquest in Iraq. Quite the contrary: the ISG report is
not an "exit strategy"; it is a new plan for achieving the Bush administration's imperial goals in the Middle East.
The ISG report stands out among the present flurry of re-evaluations as the sole evaluation of the war by a group not beholden to the president; as the only report containing an unadorned negative evaluation of the current situation (vividly captured in the oft-quoted phrase "dire and deteriorating"); and as the only public document with unremitting criticism of the Bush administration's conduct of the war.
It is this very negativity that brings into focus the severely constrained nature of the debate now underway in Washington - most importantly, the fact that US withdrawal from Iraq (immediate or otherwise) is simply not going to be part of the discussion. Besides explicitly stating that withdrawal is a terrible idea - "our leaving would make
worse" - the ISG report is built around the idea that the US will remain in Iraq for a very long time.
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