Hard Questions Tough Answers is written by Yossi Alpher, whose views do not necessarily reflect those of Americans for Peace Now or Peace Now.

Q. How do you assess the Baker-Hamilton report from the standpoint of Israeli security interests?

A. It is important to recognize that the Baker-Hamilton or Iraq Study Group report was not intended primarily to deal with Israel's interests, but rather with those of the United States in Iraq. Israel-related issues are invoked by virtue of what the ISG perceives as linkages to Iraq. So we have to discuss both the concept of linkage and the merits or drawbacks of the concrete proposals made by the report concerning the Israel-Palestine and Israel-Syria tracks.

I find the linkage concept to be problematic. Granted that "all key issues in the Middle East. . . are inextricably linked". But this means they interact and affect one another; it does not necessarily mean that solving or even alleviating one conflict or crisis situation will solve or alleviate another. Baker-Hamilton appear to assume that because so many Arabs link so many of the region's troubles to Israel, this must be the case. Nowhere do they attempt to prove their case.

The ISG report subscribes to the linkage concept in the most comprehensive way: "The United States cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict". The danger here is that failure to achieve US objectives in Iraq--and I fear the US will indeed fail in Iraq--will then be blamed on the Arab-Israel conflict, with at least part of that blame falling on Israel. This is a dilemma that Israel and friends of Israel must seek to avert. We can and should reject this kind of linkage while simultaneously pressing on with attempts to alleviate the Arab-Israel conflict regardless of the situation in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon or elsewhere.

Turning to the substance of the Israel-Arab related recommendations, the ISG report's primary innovation is its concerted advocacy of a more active US role: "The United States does its ally Israel no favors in avoiding direct involvement to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. . . . we should act boldly". This is a direct criticism of six years of Bush administration avoidance of energetic involvement. Yet the report does not investigate the reasons for that avoidance: initially, a lack of interest in foreign affairs coupled with fear of repeating the mistakes of the Clinton administration; after 9/11 and more intensely after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, preoccupation with seemingly heavier issues--militant Islam, Iraq, Iran--and rejection of the linkage concept.

Without walking President Bush through his mistakes with regard to the Arab-Israel conflict it is doubtful the report will persuade him to change his mind. The ISG, incidentally, lets the president off the hook in similar fashion with regard to the fiasco in Iraq: by being "forward looking" and avoiding a discussion of the US policy mistakes that got America into Iraq in the first place it may have avoided alienating or insulting the chief executive, but it also avoids the kind of soul-searching about American strategic goals in Iraq that would have produced a more far-reaching approach than the report's unconvincing attempt to, in effect, salvage the current untenable political status quo there.

Turning to the substance of the proposals regarding Israel, the report suggests convening meetings involving Israel, Syria, Lebanon and "the Palestinians (who acknowledge Israel's right to exist) . . . . to negotiate peace as was done at the Madrid Conference in 1991". The reference to Madrid might be anticipated from James Baker, but the report fails to distinguish between the favorable conditions for a US-shepherded process that prevailed then --the American-led victory over Iraq in Kuwait, the collapse of Soviet influence in the Middle East--and the far more problematic situation today.

One key reflection of this difference is the attitude toward the report currently displayed by the region's radicals. In 1991, for example, Syria cooperated with the war effort in Kuwait and the Madrid effort; now it is sabotaging the US war effort in Iraq and is currently backing an attempt to bring down the government in Lebanon and increase anti-Israel and anti-American influence there. Meanwhile "moderate" Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, visiting Tehran, has cited Iran as Palestine's "strategic depth".

There is not much new in the subject matter the ISG report proposes for these Israel-Arab peace meetings, with the possible worrisome exception of the report's listing of "the right of return", rather than the more neutral category of the Palestinian refugee question, as an issue to be addressed in final status talks.

Backing away from details to the broader level, the report is justified in advocating that both Israel and the US negotiate with Syria and Washington seek negotiations with Iran. It is correct in perceiving that talks with Iran will probably be a non-starter and correct to insist on trying harder with Syria, which is the weak link in the Iranian regional alliance and in some ways a more promising channel for negotiations than the stymied Palestinian track. After all, ending Syrian support for Hamas and Hizballah would make it easier to enter into productive negotiations with the Palestinians. (This, incidentally, is an example of positive linkage, but in a direction not recognized by the ISG).

Interestingly, regarding the Palestinians, the report does not specifically mention the Quartet's three conditions for interacting with Hamas, sufficing with the need for a Palestinian interlocutor to recognize Israel's right to exist and an expression of support for the leadership of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a "Palestinian national unity government". Here the report, which was updated until a day or two before its publication last Wednesday, is already out of date: Abbas has abandoned his national unity efforts and is now contemplating new elections. This is yet another indication of the thin ice the report treads on with regard to the Israel-Arab issues in view of the weak leadership evinced by all relevant parties: Palestine, Syria, Israel and the United States. Compared to 1991, Baker-Hamilton today have little to work with.

Q. You noted that Israel-related issues are not the main thrust of the ISG report and that it avoids analyzing past mistakes. Where, then, does it leave the United States in Iraq?

A. The report offers a compelling description of the deteriorating situation in Iraq, peppered with alarming facts like the size of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army (60,000 fighters) and its reliance (apropos linkages) on Hezbollah's model in Lebanon, the size of the entire current annual appropriation for the Iraqi defense forces ($3 billion, less than what the US spends in Iraq in two weeks), the size of the armed units--really additional ethnic militias--guarding the various Iraqi ministries (145,000 Iraqis) and the estimated final cost of the US adventure in Iraq (up to $2 trillion).

But nowhere does it ask how this happened. Never does it reassess the wisdom of the initial occupation of Iraq or the American experiment with electoral democracy in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, which installed and legitimized militant Islamists like al-Sadr, Hezbollah and Hamas and aggrandized Iran's hegemonic drive throughout the region. It dismisses a number of frequently mentioned alternative courses of action for the US--precipitate withdrawal, "staying the course", sending troop reinforcements and devolution into three federated regions--and focuses on the idea of moving the American military effort from the battlefield to a concerted effort to train better Iraqi military and police forces and depart within just over a year.

The report even offers a presidential pledge that no permanent American bases will remain behind. It contrives to reassure that what will remain will be "a broadly representative government that maintains its territorial integrity, is at peace with its neighbors, denies terrorism a sanctuary and doesn't brutalize its own people". And it is filled with toothless motherhood-and-apple-pie recommendations like #32: "The rights of women and the rights of all minority communities in Iraq . . . must be protected".

The reality is more than likely to be tragically different: Shi'ite rule over the southern two-thirds of Iraq in close alliance with Iran, thereby bringing Iranian influence up to Iraq's borders with Saudi Arabia and close to Jordan; militant and jihadist Sunni rule over Anbar province, bordering on Jordan; and dangerous geographic isolation for the northern Iraqi Kurdish enclave. Sunni-Shi'ite civil war, already a reality, would likely draw Iraq's neighbors into confrontation and spread elsewhere in the region.

Israel's interests would be negatively affected by these developments. Jordan, which constitutes an effective buffer between Israel and the threats from the east, would be endangered. The Kurdish autonomous enclave, whose very existence reinforces the claim to independence by non-Arab minorities like Israel in the Middle East, might be picked apart by its neighbors. And the Iranian threat would grow.

This is the direction in which the Bush-Hamilton recommendations appear to be taking not just Iraq but much of the Middle East. A better, albeit brutal course would be to prioritize America's interests in Iraq and recognize that maintaining the country's false semblance of genuine democracy is far less important today than blocking the spread of Iranian influence and preventing a prolonged and debilitating Sunni-Shi'ite confrontation throughout the region. This almost certainly means finding an excuse ("civil war", "anarchy") to freeze the current government process and install tough martial law rule, led by a moderate Shi'ite, with the necessary American backing and even troop reinforcements to restore order and suppress pro-Iranian forces in the country. It may also mean leaving some strategic American bases in the country for years to come.

This is not a pretty solution and it might not work either, but at least it addresses the real threat emanating from Iraq. It has been made necessary by America's mistake of going into Iraq in the first place, then installing some of the worst pro-Iranian militant Islamists in power. Baker and Hamilton are looking for an easy way out by ignoring this reality. Bush, who can't confront his own tragic mistakes, is not doing any better.