Where the Buck Stops

According to this New York Times story, the ISG report constitutes an impassioned plea for bipartisan concensus on the "most divisive foreign policy issue of this generation." But, we're cautioned, "[w]ithout President Bush, that cannot happen."

In other words, if the President will just roll over and accede to defeat in Iraq, we can all just get along. But question whether that should happen if the policy is wrong and dangerous for America -- which defeat would be.

President Bush's press conference with Prime Minister Blair this morning is somewhat reassuring. Unlike the ISG, he understands the stakes of the war in Iraq, and knows that it's more than just an isolated struggle in one country -- it's the battleground in a longer and more potentially threatening war on Islamofascist terror. He even mentioned outright the pernicious role Iran is playing in fomenting the ongoing killing in Iraq.

It sounds like he's waiting for other reports (from the Pentagon, for example), and -- thankfully -- it doesn't appear that he's in imminent danger of taking the silly ISG report seriously. And it doesn't sound like he's falling into the newest Washington obsession of "talking with our enemies" -- he just said that our adversaries "know what's expected of them."