Baker plan for Iraq sounds familiar (Kerry 2004 plan)

[ProSense]

Baker plan for Iraq sounds familiar

Tuesday, October 17, 2006
MARIE COCCO

WASHINGTON - So what shall we call it?

Former Secretary of State James Baker, the Bush family fixer who has been called upon to patch up the shattered U.S. policy in Iraq, hints at the circumlocutions we will hear when his Iraq Study Group reports, conveniently after November’s midterm congressional elections, that the United States somehow must extricate itself from the bloody failure.

Snip...

So Baker again extends his wise old hand to rescue the president — and his party — from a great folly for which Americans have paid so much in blood and treasure. His bipartisan commission seems headed toward a call for a negotiated settlement, drawing in key regional actors — Iran and Syria included, Baker says — to prevent a civil war in Iraq from becoming a conflagration involving Sunni and Shiite factions throughout the Middle East.

APPROACH PROMOTED IN 2004

This course, which academic and other experts on the Middle East have been advocating, bears a striking similarity to the approach promoted by a certain prominent American politician more than two years ago: Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry.

“We still have an opportunity to prevent Iraq from becoming a failed state and a haven for global terrorists and Islamic extremists,” Kerry wrote in a Washington Post op-ed article on July 4, 2004.

The Democratic presidential nominee called for a change of course that would give economic incentives to draw in estranged European allies, who might then agree to a peacekeeping role for NATO troops. He proposed a regional diplomatic conference with Iraq’s neighbors to keep borders intact, prevent outside interference in Iraq’s internal affairs and protect minorities.

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[acmejack]

1. Why it shall be the Baker Bush Plan, of course!

Or perhaps Bush-Baker Peace Plan.