Bush-Blair split over report's key proposals

One by one, the people who supported the Iraq war have fallen by the wayside leaving Bush and Blair looking like the last two people on the planet who thought the invasion was a good idea. And now, with the publication of the Iraq Study Group report, even Blair is starting to put some distance between himself and this most stubborn of American Presidents.

The ISG has offered, nay ordered, Bush a way out of the quagmire that he has created for himself in the Middle East. It is an escape route that Bush seems determined not to take.

Indeed, Bush - rather fantastically - still talks of "victory" in Iraq, a "victory" that all but the delusional have given up on.

At yesterday's press conference, the split between Bush and Blair became evident for the first time. Blair seemed enthusiastic in his embrace of the ISG report whilst Bush balked at the recommendation that the US should enter into talks with Iran and Syria.

He [Bush] restated the White House position that talks with Tehran were conditional on the Iranians stopping uranium enrichment, while contacts with Damascus would depend on an end to Syrian destabilisation of Lebanon and a cessation of arms and money flows over the border to Iraqi insurgents.

"We've made that position very clear. And the truth of the matter is that these countries have now got the choice to make," the president said.

"If they want to sit down at the table with the United States, it's easy. Just make some decisions that'll lead to peace, not to conflict."

Mr Blair, by contrast, welcomed the regional peace initiative put forward by the ISG, saying only that the basis for those discussions should be acceptance of UN resolutions on Iraq.

A Downing Street spokesman confirmed the British position of demanding a halt to uranium enrichment while continuing to talk to Iran on other issues. "In terms of our position, we continue to have diplomatic relations with Iran and have always done so," the spokesman said.

Blair has always said that the solution to the War on Terror lies in solving the Israeli-Palestine situation and was understandably fulsome in his praise of the report stating, "There is a kind of whole vision about how we need to proceed that links what happens inside Iraq with what happens outside Iraq. And the report put this very simply and very clearly. I think the report is practical, it's clear, and it offers also the way of bringing people together."

Bush, on the other hand, sought to portray the report as simply one of many considerations before him.

President Bush praised the commission, headed by the retired politicians James Baker and Lee Hamilton, for its bipartisan approach, but appeared to put more emphasis on a separate assessment of the situation in Iraq expected in the next few days from the joint chiefs of staff.

"Baker-Hamilton is a really important part of our considerations," the president said. "But we want to make sure the military gets their point of view in. After all, a lot of what we're doing is a military operation."

The military report is not expected to propose substantial troop withdrawals and may even advocate a brief surge in the US military presence in Iraq. President Bush yesterday made it clear he was more likely to listen to that kind of advice. He said: "Our commanders will be making recommendations based upon whether or not we're achieving our stated objective."

By rejecting the calls to negotiate with Iran and Syria, Bush is already starting to cherry pick the report, the one thing that the report states cannot be done.

It is the unanimous view of the Iraq Study Group that these recommendations offer a new way forward for the United States in Iraq and the region. They are comprehensive and need to be implemented in a coordinated fashion. They should not be separated or carried out in isolation.

It really is hard to know what to recommend when you are dealing with someone as stubborn and as spectacularly stupid as President Bush. He has been offered a way out of Iraq, and warned that his actions to date may have a lasting negative effect on American influence on the whole Middle Eastern region. It is a recommendation that even Blair is urging him to accept.

And yet, Bush is making noises that hint that he is unprepared to take the advice he has been given.

At times like this, Americans need to seriously consider - for the sake of the entire nation - the subject of impeachment.

This man is simply too spectacularly stupid to be left in charge.

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tag: Bush, Blair, Iraq war, "Stay the course", Baker report