What Baker Should Tell Bush

To: The President From: James A. Baker III Re: How You Can Keep Iraq from Falling Apart

Mr. President:

As you know, the commission that I co-chair with Lee Hamilton isn't scheduled to submit its Iraq-policy recommendations until next month, but the situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly and I felt compelled to offer this unofficial interim report. Your range of options in Iraq has narrowed dramatically. It is possible that the situation is beyond salvage. The remainder of your presidency may be spent managing the international consequences of a historic policy failure. You must change course dramatically and soon. Your stated objectives--democracy, stability in Iraq--can remain the same, but your priorities must change. Democracy must take a backseat to the restoration of order.

Let me be blunt: the U.S. military campaign to stabilize Iraq has failed. We have lost control of Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold. We are losing the battle for Baghdad. Muqtada al-Sadr's militia has taken control in several predominantly Shi'ite provinces. The government in Baghdad is near collapse. Sadr's support is the only real power base that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has left. If the political equation isn't changed soon, it is likely that Sadr will emerge as the de jure leader of Shi'ite Iraq. This will certainly lead to a full-scale civil war and Kurdish secession.

Are there any viable options to anarchy? More troops? The U.S. military is overstretched and exhausted. Partition? The atmosphere in Baghdad is too chaotic and bitter for a new power-sharing deal among the Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds. The last best chance to restore order and hold Iraq together may be a dramatic ecumenical expansion of the Iraqi security forces under new leadership. We need to rectify the most serious error we made in Iraq after our initial military success and restore elements of the Baath Party, especially its former Shi'ite military leaders, to positions of power. Each of Iraq's neighbors, with the exception of Iran, believes that some version of this proposal is the best immediate course of action.