Sen Kerry remarks on ISG Report Release:

Sen. John Kerry's Press Release: 12/06/06

“Not one more American soldier should die because politicians in Iraq or in the United States are unwilling to face reality and change direction. We need to change course now. Today, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group issued an urgent call for a new direction in Iraq. Their report acknowledges the futility of the current policy. If the Administration will accept its recommendations, this report can provide core elements of the way forward.

“The report underscores what many of us have long been arguing: there is no military solution to our deep problems in Iraq. Most importantly the report calls on policy makers to acknowledge that for Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future, the large commitment of American forces in Iraq can not be indefinite. Meeting the report’s goal of getting our combat troops out of Iraq by early in 2008 is essential to forcing the diplomatic and political steps needed to achieve stability. I wish the report went further by making this a hard deadline for redeploying our combat troops. Iraqi political leaders have proven time and again that they only respond to hard deadlines, and I believe that a deadline is the most effective way to expedite the process and save lives.

“The report calls for a step for which I have been a strong advocate for over two years: a major diplomatic initiative bringing together others in the region – including Iran and Syria – to forge a political solution to end the violence. Prime Minister Maliki has now embraced the idea of a regional conference, and this requires real diplomacy from the Administration to make it successful. I strongly support the report’s calls for sending additional military and economic support to Afghanistan as we disengage from Iraq because it is clear that we must redeploy from Iraq to succeed in Afghanistan.”

Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
On the Iraq Study Group Report

December 6, 2006

“Unfortunately, the Iraq Study Group report does too little to change the flawed mind-set that led to the misguided war in Iraq. Maybe there are still people in Washington who need a study group to tell them that the policy in Iraq isn’t working, but the American people are way ahead of this report.

While the report has regenerated a few good ideas, it doesn’t adequately put Iraq in the context of a broader national security strategy. We need an Iraq policy that is guided by our top national security priority – defeating the terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11 and its allies. We can’t continue to just look at Iraq in isolation. Unless we set a serious timetable for redeploying our troops from Iraq, we will be unable to effectively address these global threats. In the end, this report is a regrettable example of ‘official Washington’ missing the point.”

In the long run — and we are in this for the long run — the war on terror cannot be won without the successful transformation of the Greater Middle East, and especially its Arab core. And our strategy must do what it takes to increase the internal demand for change in that region. That means that we are in a war of ideas and ideologies — but ultimately a war that must be fought and won within the Islamic world. That means we have a huge stake in finding partners in the Arab world who are willing not only to support the transformation of the Middle East, but to reestablish the broad and unchallenged moral authority needed to isolate and defeat terrorists. And ultimately, that means we must liberate ourselves from (sic\and) the Middle East itself from the tyranny of dependence on petroleum, which has frustrated every impulse towards modernization in the region, while giving its regimes the resources to avoid choices and hold on to power.

We have to understand that the hostility to America and to our values that feeds the jihadist threat is the product of many decades of repressed debate within the Middle East. We’ve become the convenient excuse for the failures of rulers, and a convenient target for the frustrations of the ruled. And frankly, we’ve made that possible by signaling Arab regimes that we don’t much care what they do so long as they keep pumping the oil and keep the price low. That attitude has to end, not only end, it must be reversed.

Energy independence is not a pie-in-the-sky concept. It’s not just a dream. It’s a domestic priority for our country, obviously, but is much more. It is essential to our national security, because our reliance on their oil limits our ability to move them towards the needed reforms and actually props up decaying and sometimes corrupt regimes, including those that support terrorist groups.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/9390/real_security_in_a_post911_world.html