Opinion (Richard Cohen): Dying for 'maybe'

The Iraq Study Group

James A. Baker III, the renowned foreign policy realist, looked realism in the eye -- and blinked. The Iraq report he co-authored with Lee Hamilton recommended many things, but shied from the most realistic one of all: Get the hell out as soon as possible.

I know, I know. That would not be realistic, you say. Iraq would implode, Shiites and Sunnis would kill one another with abandon, al-Qaeda would prosper, Iran would extend and enhance its influence, Syria would gloat, Israel would be even more threatened, and the United States would suffer the sort of humiliating defeat that would encourage fanatics all over the world to take a whack at us. This is not realism. This is madness.

Read the rest at the Washington Post