Prominent Republicans Rejecting Iraq Failure Group's Consensus on Israel

Two of the key players in the GOP '08 field have rejected a major premise of the Iraq Failure Group's report; that resolving the Israeali/Palestinian conflict will solve the problem in Iraq. First, from Rudy Giuliani:

"The idea of leaving Iraq, I think, is a terrible mistake," the former mayor said. The group's report, however, stresses that America should not make an "open-ended" commitment of troops and links the presence of troops to milestones met by the Iraqi government.

Mr. Giuliani also rejected the panel's recommendation that America tie the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict to stabilizing Iraq. When asked about this linkage on Mr. Prager's radio show, Mr. Giuliani said, "Israel and Palestine is an important issue. Sometimes it's used as an excuse to deal with underlying issues. But the reality here is that the Islamo-fundamentalist terrorists are at war with our way of life, with our modern world, with rights for women, religious freedom, societies that have religious freedom. And all of that would still exist, no matter what happens in Israel and Palestine."

Exactly. We could push every Israeli into the sea and there would be no significant decrease in Islamic nutcase violence around the world. If anything, the Palestinians would likely begin killing each other with the same type of sectarian violence we now see in Iraq. Differing sects of Islam are not capable of getting along with one another - they all think they are the exclusive way to Allah and everyone else is an infidel.

John McCain also spoke out against the Iraq Failure Group's report:

Senator McCain, a Republican of Arizona, also offered a critical assessment of some of the group's recommendations. He called the linkage of the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict to the violence in Iraq "tenuous at best."

Mr. McCain also rejected the panel's call for a regional diplomatic conference on Iraq involving Iran and Syria. "Our interests in Iraq diverge significantly from those of Damascus and Tehran, and this is unlikely to change under the current regimes," he said. In the report, the group said one of the inducements America should offer Iran is to drop its policy of regime change.

But Mr. McCain appeared most concerned about the panel's placing of a time line of early 2008 to begin redeploying American combat troops stationed in Iraq. "By placing a limited timeframe on our military commitments, we would only induce Iraqis to side with militias that will stay indefinitely, rather than with the U.S. and government of Iraq," he said. "Such a step would only complicate our considerable difficulties."

Both of these guys are trying to move far enough right to lock up the conservative primary voters in '08. Conservatives are not impressed with the Iraq Failure Group and their efforts to get us out of Iraq at any cost, including the abandonment of Israel. No Republican who embraces their report will have much of a chance with conservatives.