Analysis: Bringing Bush the Bad News on Iraq

The Iraq Study Group

The American public has been promised many a "turning point" in Iraq, only for its hopes to be dashed: The transfer of authority to an appointed Iraqi government, then to an elected one; the constitutional referendum and then a second election; meetings between the President and Iraqi leaders, security sweeps by combined U.S.-Iraqi forces, and more — none have delivered on the promise of transforming a slow moving catastrophe into a triumph. And it may be precisely that history of disappointments that prompted the Iraq Study Group to carefully manage public expectations, to the point that the American public is well aware that the proposals it will present to President Bush on Wednesday will offer no quick fix to the crisis the U.S. faces in Iraq.

Indeed, the composition and process of the group led by former Secretary of State James Baker and — as Baker always hastens to point out, lest its bipartisan character be overlooked — former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton suggests that its primary purpose is to achieve in Washington that which remains elusive in Baghdad: a national consensus on the way forward. And it was that point that President Bush chose to emphasize in his own response, stressing that it provides a basis for seeking "common ground."

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