{"id":150,"date":"2006-10-10T05:03:19","date_gmt":"2006-10-10T09:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=150"},"modified":"2007-02-27T22:12:50","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T03:12:50","slug":"bakers-iraq-stabilization-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=150","title":{"rendered":"Baker&#8217;s Iraq Study Group"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=148\">previous post<\/a> I suggested that it would be very peculiar if Jame A. Baker, III&#8211;one of the leading Right Arabists in the foreign policy Establishment&#8211;embraced <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=51\">plans for a decentralized Iraq<\/a>, as reported by the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/article\/0,,2089-2393750,00.html\">London <em>Times<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I did not know, at that time, that Baker had appeared on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week&#8221; the day before, talking about Iraq.  I still have not seen an on-line transcript of the interview.  But the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.iht.com\/articles\/ap\/2006\/10\/09\/america\/NA_GEN_US_James_Baker_Iraq.php\">Associated Press<\/a> (via the International Herald Tribune) has offered up some quotes that only add to my sense that Baker is likely to favor an anti-Shiite coup, rather than regional autonomy for Shiites and Kurds.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Baker said, &#8220;if we picked up and left right now&#8221; Iraq would be plunged into &#8220;the biggest civil war you&#8217;ve ever seen,&#8221; with Turkey, Iran, Syria and other neighboring countries getting involved&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[At the end of Operation Desert Storm in 1991,&#8230;] [a]s much as <strong>Saddam&#8217;s neighbors<\/strong> wanted to see him gone, they <strong>feared Iraq would fragment in ways that would play into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists in Iran<\/strong>,&#8221; Baker said.<\/p>\n<p>Today in Iraq, &#8220;The <strong>risk is certainly there, the same risk<\/strong>,&#8221; Baker said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Same risk.  Same neighbors.  Same Baker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a previous post I suggested that it would be very peculiar if Jame A. Baker, III&#8211;one of the leading Right Arabists in the foreign policy Establishment&#8211;embraced plans for a decentralized Iraq, as reported by the London Times. I did not know, at that time, that Baker had appeared on ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week&#8221; the day [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,3,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}