James Baker is shaping up to be the Republican Party’s next Pat Buchanan. You want me to vote Republican? Shyeah. Because of tactics like this? Right.
WASHINGTON – According to Thursday’s issue of the conservative Washington Times’ Insight magazine, the White House was looking into proposal by former Secretary of State James Baker to hold a Middle East peace conference without Israel .
According to the report, the United States government was going to consider the possibility of having a second Madrid Conference in which Arab states would participate, including Syria and Iran, but with without Israel being invited to participate.
As reported by the magazine, officials said the conference would be promoted as a forum to discuss Iraq’s future, but actually focus on Arab demands for Israel to withdraw from territories captured in the 1967 war.
A source in the US government was quoted in the report as saying, “As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the US to strike a deal without Jewish pressure. This has become the hottest proposal examined by the foreign policy people over the last month.”
Other sources in the government told the magazine that the proposal was supported by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Under Secretary of Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, and National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.
So, they want to exclude Israel from a conference that affects her future directly, and they want to do this because of those horrible Jews, who have the nerve to have an interest in the outcome of matters that concern the land of Israel—land of their origin.
And they want all this, because—and this is the kicker—it will affect the war in Iraq.
No, it won’t. Iraqi Shi’ites aren’t murdering Iraqi Sunnis because of Israel’s treatment of the palestinians. Syria isn’t supplying arms and terrorists to Iraq because of Israel’s treatment of the palestinians. Iran isn’t supplying arms and soldiers to Iraq because of Israel’s treatment of the palestinians. All of these things will continue, even if Israel gives back every inch of land she got in 1967.
It’s the Islamism, stupid.
Yasser Arafat was given the best shot at a palestinian state, and he turned it down—because Israel is on an Islamic “waqf” and Islamists will never acknowledge that the land is no longer theirs.
Eff you, Baker, and eff your cohorts at State who think this is a good idea. It is reprehensible and blatantly anti-Semitic to exclude Israel because of “Jewish pressure.” But then, we already knew Baker doesn’t like Jews.
No other country in the world would stand for agreeing to the outcome of a conference that didn’t include it. I don’t believe Israel is going to agree to whatever this “conference” comes up with.
Well, it sure smells like Munich, 1938 to me. And we all know where that led to.
I have a feeling that 2007 will be a bloody year all around.
That does it — from now on, it’s IndyMedia and Al-Jazeera for me. I *want* a news source that keeps telling me that the Jews run the universe.
Even after 9-11 they want to get all buddy buddy with those insane fanatic Muslims?!?
How dumb and can you be?
Sure you need a scape goat for your problems but picking on Israel, your only true friend in the Middle East? How low can you sink?
If true this is one DUMB idea that will never bring peace to the region!! Israel has to be included in any peace initiative.
The Jackass Party joins with Baker to fuck us over:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3337041,00.html
chsw (pardon my language)
Perhaps he just read Jimmy Carter’s new book…
Seriously, though, the most inflammatory part of this story, that the conference would be nominally about Iraq but would actually focus on Israel, appears to be nothing more than an unsubstantiated rumor based on the ISG’s expressed opinion that there is linkage between the Palestinian question and the situation in Iraq. And coming from a story that originates with The Washington Times, no less. Since when did they become a credible source? The Washington Post coverage, for example, while covering the same basic facts, does not contain this somewhat problematic assertion about a bait-and-switch scheme.
That puts it in the same category as another recent rumor, that Hamas had met privately with representatives of the U.S. Democratic party (i.e., probable baloney).
As for the “official” position of the Republican party on this issue, I will note that McCain and Giuliani, the two leading presidential contenders for 2008, have already come out and said that they disagree with Baker’s idea of linkage, and that they do not see his ideas being adopted in toto in any case.
Finally, rather than reserve your ire exclusively for Republicans, please remember that the ISG is a bipartisan panel, also known as the Baker-Hamilton commission.
HT: Good point. I’ll be very happy to discover that this story is untrue.
Let’s wait and see how it plays out.
As for the Dems, well, I’ve got plenty of ire for them as well, but let’s face it. It’s Baker’s study group. He’s the lead.
sounds sort of like antisemitism in Poland after the momzerim came close to wiping out all the Jews…and the State Department clowns have reared their “going native” ugly heads and are getting away with it…
and James Baker told us to f%^& ourselves and his friend Jeeemy Carter is angry that there is not the open warfare between Jordan and Egypt and Israel that there once was and he tried to sabotage the whole thing…
a pox on the whole group
and, again, thank you Professor Ken Stein for severing his long-term ties to the Carter Center…
but most of them won’t let something important like principles get in their way if they can make money selling out Yehudim, even if the Yehudim are Americans
I daresay this process would not be underway if the GOP had done better in the midterm election. THAT is why you should have voted for the Republicans.
Naturally, I reciprocate Baker’s sentiments, even though I did “vote for ’em.” That aside, Baker advocates a return to a status quo that was, and is, unsustainable. If it were in the US’ interests to throw Israel to the wolves, I might feel I had to support it. It isn’t; I don’t. What has to change is the Arabs’ minds, not the demographics in the vicinity of 31N 35E.
I did vote for a Republican, Anonymous. I didn’t vote for Allen, but I had other choices on my ballot.
If there was one person I wanted to lose it was Jim Webb. Not Ellison, not Hillary Clinton, not whatever nonentity ran against Michael Steele. Webb.
And you felt free to effectively give him your vote?!? Do you give him a pass for the cartoon and the ‘Felix’ business? Well, if you like Pat Buchanan, you must love this guy. Eesh.
So Allen would be a nonentity. Oh no, much better to have a…whatever Webb is. What flaws could Allen possibly have to allow you to let that happen? Incest? Eating flesh torn from a living animal? I guess it’s not my place to ask, but…how could you?
Ah, Meryl, you are inaccurate that no country would agree to the result of a conference in which it wasn’t involved. Czechoslovaia did not participate in the 1938 Munich conference.
Not the most hopeful precedent, of course. Look how well that worked out for the Czechs.
Alex–you beat me to it.
Remember when Ariel Sharon declared that Israel would not be another Czechoslovakia, and drew a stinging rebuke from Bush? I don’t know what else may have been said behind the scenes, but Sharon was Bush’s lap dog from that point onward.
Don’t blame Baker or Condi; a fish always stinks from the head.
If we’re looking for historical analogies, the peace agreement that ended the Korean War might be instructive. All parties to the war signed on to the agreement — except the South Koreans, who thought that agreement was a sellout. While it’s easy to sympathize with the South Korean viewpoint back then, it’s hard to deny that both America and South Korea are better off now, despite the high-handed way the Americans treated South Korea.
So too with Israel, perhaps. A diplomatic arangement between American and Arab states that cut out the Israelis wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing for Israel in the long term, though it would depend a LOT on the details.
If you’re looking for historical analogies, (other) Anonymous, try and find more suitable ones. In Korea we invested fifty thousand lives to back our word. And a permanent, or at least indefinite, tripwire force.
Do you propose to park an armored division in the Negev indefinitely? Does that seem consonant with all the current realities, including the one where Israel says, as they have before, no thank you?
What this is saying is that Israel had better smack those Iranian nuclear facilities themselves. And when it’s half-done, because Israel doesn’t have the limitless aerial force necessary to deliver a sustained pasting, well, I hope somebody will be happy about it.
All we can hope for is bombs being more efficient than physics says they should be (like lightning from a clear sky) triggering an previously unknown fault into an earthquake that just happens to be centered on the bomb facilities.
Ain somchin al hanes (do not depend on a miracle), but like Chizkiyau (Hezekiah) and Sancheruv there is only one “thing” we can rely on.
Just wanted to say that I agree that this is a reason to vote Republican, particularly for the conservative/neocon wing of the Republican party.
As “anonymous” said, if the Republicans did better in the last election, this report would have gone straight in the trash.
Sabba Hillel, the bombs will likely do their job, at least I hope so. Miracles aside, which of course could make bombs irrelevant.
What I am worried about is, Israel cannot drop enough of them, on enough targets, because they haven’t got thousands of planes like the US, and all the zillions of other assets that support the USAF. Tanking, for instance. Iranian missions are at the far edge of IDF AF’s (is there a better acronym?) range and involve a lot of hostile territory in between.
I have run the math before – Israel has a MARGINAL capability to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, and is likely to do only partial damage – which will help, which is worth doing, but which will not put an end to the problem – while sustaining significant casualties.
If Israel is going to destroy the Iranian nuclear program it will have to use preemptive nuclear strikes. Nothing else is effective enough to guarantee destruction of the hardened targets. I doubt they will do this. I suspect even the USA would have to use nukes to be sure of destroying the Iranian targets, especially once they are defended by those brand-new Russian SAMs.
If Baker and his pals were half as realist as they boast of being that is what they would suggest, preemptive nuclear war against Iran, since Iran is at war with us and has been for 27 years. But the part of the Baker-Hamilton Report saying that Iran and Syria have interests in seeing a stable Iraq proves that these guys were not realists, but living in cloudcuckooland.
The new missiles are of low significance. They would not stop high altitue smart bombings. What they threaten, to some extent, is low-flying helos and cruise missiles. They can be managed. Be glad they are not getting worse like Sov S-300s and -400s.
There are conventional penetrators and also not all targets are deeply buried. Also, personnel can be targeted, weapons scientists and such. So Israel can retard the program. But only the US could bomb around the clock enough to really pound them.
Realists would be counseling assassinations of Ahmadinejad and the mullahs, sponsoring coups, etc.