Baker's Real Game: We broke it, you own it

I think everyone, right and left, is making a mistake in taking the ISG Report's policy recommendations at face value. What the ISG is really up to is "enlarging the problem," as it's known in some policy circles. By engaging other countries on the solution for Iraq, we make them part of the problem of Iraq. Then, when the problem turns out to be unsolvable, we are no longer solely to blame. The narrative then becomes, "The whole middle east - in the form of the Iraq International Support Group - tried to fix Iraq, to no avail. It's not working, and we don't want to participate in this larger process anymore. So we're leaving - not so much leaving Iraq, as leaving this useless regional forum. The forum has failed, not the US, and it's your problem now."