et’s be very clear: the Iraq Study Group Report is not worth the paper it is printed on. I cannot but agree with conservative commentators who have expressed their outrage at the hyped up media coverage of the presentation of the report while the report itself presents nothing useable.

For all you liberals who believe that this report provides the “weighty” or “intellectual” basis for a gradual withdrawal from Iraq, you need to wake up to the actual contents of the report. Have any of actually read it and considered the reasoning in it? The report is not intellectual at all—in fact, it is barely a mediocre college student project. It presents nothing new and it misinterprets and misanalyzes myriads of facts related to Iraq. The basic problem with the Iraq Study Group is that James Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton agreed from the start that they would only look for recommendations that would lead up to a quick withdrawal. All facts were interpreted in that light, all counterevidence or competing views were methodically ignored or downplayed.

The members of the Iraq Study Group are all amateurs and their advice is not worth two hoots. Their belief in a “political” and “diplomatic” solution in Iraq is not merely naive, it is outright dumb. You cannot sit down with terrorists and ask them nicely to stop killing innocent citizens. That goes for the terrorist within Iraq (mostly Sunni insurgent groups, but also some Shia groups) as well as for the terrorist regimes in Iran and Syria. While diplomacy would certainly be preferable over military action, the sheer logic of the current situation rules out diplomacy. There can only be a military solution to Iraq. Any other course of action will inevitably lead to a regional war, probably drawing in Iran and Syria openly into a conflict they are already supporting behind the scenes.

Real military experts, such as Frederick Kagan, make a compelling case for a last-ditch military effort. They reject the notion that it’s too late and that the US should cut and run, even in the supposed gracious way proposed by the Baker-Hamilton commission. While it is clear that the US is currently losing in Iraq and that the country is in a civil war, it is not time to throw in the towel and retreat yet. Kagan and co make clear that victory can still be achieved if the US manages to create confidence in the stability of the country among Iraqi citizens. As all people crave security, they will seek help from whomever offers it. If the Iraqi democracy can be seen to carry out the basic functions of any democratic state, citizens might pin their hopes on it rather than on the militias.

The recommendations from the Iraq Study Group will inevitably lead to a regional war as the militias will fill the power vacuum left by retreating US soldiers. The recommendations are unworkable, naive, and dangerous. The only hope for Iraq is an increase in US (and allied) troop levels to provide real, visible security on the streets of Baghdad and other major cities. The best model to aim for is probably that of Israel, where security is not nearly as high as in the US, but nevertheless provides a basic stability of a kind that would be a great improvement for Iraq.