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Jewish World Review Dec. 13, 2006 / 22 Kislev, 5767 Baker-Hamilton's fine print: Stay in Iraq By Niall Ferguson http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | 'PERSUASION involves both incentives and penalties," Henry Kissinger once remarked. "So there is an element of implied coercion." Last week saw the publication of a masterpiece of persuasion. But whom will it persuade? And with what sticks and carrots? Most commentators have interpreted the report of the Iraq Study Group as a well-crafted admission of defeat. Predictably, that was exactly how President Bush himself reacted to it. "I … believe we're going to succeed," he told reporters Thursday. "One way to assure failure is just to quit." Addressing one of the report's key recommendations, he bluntly declared that Iran and Syria "shouldn't bother to show up" for negotiations about Iraq if they don't understand their "responsibilities to not fund terrorists" and if the Iranians don't "verifiably suspend their [uranium] enrichment program." Yet anyone who bothers to read the report carefully — as opposed to skimming the executive summary — can see that it neither proposes "quitting" Iraq nor pins serious hope on Iranian or Syrian assistance. Quite the reverse. Persuasion in the realm of grand strategy is more a matter of rhetorical art than science. The first essential step is to identify your target audience. Most readers of the report assume that it is directed at Bush. That is wrong. Its principal target audience is Congress, and particularly the new Democratic majorities in both houses. And the aim is not to persuade a stubborn president to admit defeat. Rather, the report's aim is to convince legislators that withdrawal from Iraq — no matter how much their constituents may yearn for it — is not an option. The report's other intended readership is Arab governments throughout the Middle East. The message for them is the same: A U.S. exit from the region is what you most have to fear. The second step in the process of persuasion is to conjure up a nightmare vision of the future if the action you envisage is not taken. The worst-case scenario proposed by the Iraq Study Group is the one about which I have been writing since February: "Sectarian warfare, growing violence or a slide toward chaos," leading to "the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe." Here are the report's most important lines: "Neighboring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread … across the Islamic world. [There could be] Shia insurrections — perhaps fomented by Iran — in Sunni-ruled states. Such a broader sectarian conflict could open a Pandora's box of problems." The consequences would be much more than a propaganda victory for Al Qaeda and a humiliation for the United States, which is what they worry about on Capitol Hill. In such a conflagration, no Mideast government — with the exception of the fundamentalist Shiite regime in Tehran — could feel secure. And that is precisely why Arab rulers should dread an American exit. Step 3 in the art of persuasion is to propose remedies that sound attractive to your target audience. These the Iraq Study Group has certainly produced — in profusion. But you need to read the small print of all 79 recommendations. Consider the long-anticipated "diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region," involving Iran, a reviled member of Bush's "axis of evil," as well as Syria, no friend of the U.S. "A nation can and should engage its adversaries and enemies," declares the report (in a sentence that Co-Chairman James A. Baker III must surely have written) and should offer them "incentives as well as disincentives." Note that word "disincentives." Baker's idea here is not to go cap in hand to Damascus and Tehran. Rather, as he explained to the media last week, it is to "flip the Syrians" by appealing to Sunni solidarity, and to isolate the Iranian regime by exposing its "rejectionist attitude." In other words: Get the leaders of all Iraq's neighbors into the same room and play "spot the Shiites." Now let's read the small print on troop withdrawals. "By the first quarter of 2008," the report says, "all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq." This has been widely interpreted as the first step toward the exit. It says "out of Iraq," right? Wrong. Look more closely at some of the report's other recommendations: The number of U.S. military personnel "embedded" in Iraqi army battalions and brigades should be increased from 3,000 or 4,000 to between 10,000 to 20,000. The number of U.S. police trainers should be expanded. The U.S. Department of Justice should lead the work of organizational transformation in the Interior Ministry. A senior advisor for economic reconstruction in Iraq is required. The U.S. State Department should train personnel to carry out civilian tasks associated with a complex stability operation; it should establish a Foreign Service Reserve Corps. Does that sound like "out of Iraq" to you? I'd say it sounds more like "stay in Iraq" — only this time, let's not screw it up. The media have fixated on the possibility of a quantitative reduction in U.S. troops — which is in any case conditional on there being no "unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground" — while missing the underlying argument for qualitative improvement. Hats off, then, to Baker and his team. This turns out to be a classic work of persuasion. Its target audiences have been well chosen. Its worst-case scenario is plausible. And its recommendations are so carefully phrased that they sound like disengagement while actually signifying better engagement. It is certainly not the exit strategy Americans want. But it might just help avoid a Middle Eastern Armageddon. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. BUY THE BOOKS Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.). Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.). Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is the author of "Empire" (Basic Books, 2003) and "Colossus" (Penguin, 2004). Comment by clicking here. 12/05/06: The surrealism of Iraq 11/29/06: Some civil wars never end 11/20/06: Will GOP get last laugh? 10/25/06: America's brittle empire 10/17/06: Failing to stop North Korea from going nuclear may have been the last straw for the onetime guardian of world order 10/03/06: Why Churchill opposed torture 09/27/06: Insanity on a Global Scale 09/19/06: The GOP will hang on 09/13/06: Long Live Royal Bloodlines! 09/05/06: Red-state Republicans and blue-faced liberals are starting to agree: Green is the way 08/29/06: What if the London Bombers Succeeded? 08/15/06: Testing the Limits of the U.N.: Who seriously expects Kofi Annan to stop Al Qaeda terror attacks? 08/08/06: The coming tsunami of trash 07/18/06: Forget the '60s and ‘Make Love, Not War.’ Today's world is facing a Summer of Rage 07/11/06: When will China pull the plug on North Korea? 06/20/06: Hedge funds vs. central bankers: Will inflation, deflation or recession win in the coming months? 06/13/06: Britain's economy is just like America's — minus the entrepreneurs and growth 06/06/06: The X-Men have taken over Washington 05/30/06: Quit protesting, profs! 05/23/06: World markets' wild ride: Economic volatility is back with a vengeance 05/16/06: The Cold Wars are coming 05/09/06: Many commentators are missing dangerous political shift 05/02/06: Put some sugar in your tank 04/25/06: Hu and the dog that didn't bark 04/18/06: Should Americans be less optimistic? 04/11/06: Globalization's second death? 04/04/06: So many ‘special’ friends 03/28/06: Let's get it right about what has gone wrong 03/21/06: Congress is trying to give the world a globotomy 03/14/06: Lame ducks can still bite back 03/07/06: A 19th Century critique of a 21st Century president 02/28/06: The crash of civilizations 02/21/06: Not the president, but close 02/14/06: Want historic trouble? Look south 02/07/06: Greenspan advising Britain? It's housing bubbles, deficits and potential meltdowns all over again 01/31/06: Missing the Cold War 01/24/06: It's a sick, Thick World 01/17/06: Tomorrow's world war today 01/03/06: Scotland, it's over, but keep the accents 12/20/05: History, democracy and Iraq 12/20/05: History, democracy and Iraq 11/22/05: Ghost of Napoleon haunts Tony Blair 11/22/05: Can it happen in Britain too? 11/15/05: Red plus blue equals purple 11/10/05: The fires of disintegration 11/01/05: Triumph of an über-wonk © 2006, Los Angeles Times Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate

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