The long anticipated report of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) is in and with the exception of the very strange recommendation to bring Iran and Syria into negotiations for implementing stability in Iraq, there doesn't seem to be much that they recommend Bush do that his administration isn't already doing.
The members of the ISG urge that we accelerate the training of Iraqi military and police so that they can take over more of their own security but by all reports such training is already proceeding as quickly as it can.
They call for a withdrawal of combat troops by 2008 if conditions permit. Does anyone seriously think that the Bush administration is not anxious to get combat troops out of Iraq as soon as conditions permit? If the ISG really means to recommend that troops stay as long as the situation there requires then they're simply affirming Bush's policy. If they're saying that we should leave in 2008 whether Iraq is stable or not then they're calling for abject surrender. Either way the recommendation is pointless.
They also appear to regard Israel as a serious impediment to peace in the region, and, although they urge that all of Iraq's neighbors be involved in working out a peaceful solution in Iraq, they pointedly exclude Israel. It seems a bit perverse to urge that Iran and Syria, who are the cause of most of the problems in the Middle East, be included in the process but Israel be shunned.
There are 79 recommendations all told and many of them are doubtless good ideas, but they're not original ideas. For the most part, where the ISG makes a worthwhile recommendation they recommend what the administration is already doing. Where the recommendations are not good, as in treating Iran and Syria as if they were anything but thugs, criminals and assassins, they should be ignored.
Powerline says that the report is about as bad as advertised. Ed Morissey at Captain's Quarters has some excellent analysis as well.
