Analysis: Iraq Report Ups Ante for Bush

The Iraq Study Group

WASHINGTON -- President Bush now has the outlines of a bipartisan exit strategy for Iraq and a new secretary of defense to help carry it out. And while he's under no obligation to heed the Iraq Study Group's recommendations, the pressure on him to change course is now politically enormous.

Whether he'll go along, when, and to what extent, will shape the nation's political landscape in the months to come.

The group led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton recommended on Wednesday that U.S. forces largely withdraw from combat over the next year and focus on training Iraqis.

It also called for stepped-up diplomatic efforts _ including talks with Iran and Syria _ to stabilize Iraq and revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Bush has spurned Iraq talks with Iran and Syria.

The commission's document offers a bipartisan blueprint for Bush _ if he goes along with the recommendations _ to begin extricating himself from the unpopular war. It stops short of proposing a specific troop-withdrawal timetable that Bush could not be expected to embrace.

His remarks on Wednesday were conciliatory but general. In the past, Bush has sometimes sounded ready to embrace changes only to go back to the kind of stubborn line he used as recently as last week in Jordan _ that U.S. troops won't leave until the mission is complete.

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