James Baker is the 2006 Version of Neville Chamberlain

Andy McCarthy from National Review lays quick waste to the idiocy being spewed by the Baker Study Group (yes, that would be the same James Baker who advised leaving Saddam in power in '91, among other ridiculously bad choices and egregious failures as a "diplomat"), namely "talking" to our enemies. Until we realize that the terror masters in Iran, Syria, and most of the rest of the Arab world are bent on the destruction of America, the West, and our way of life because they think their God commands it, we are affirmatively making the choice to be ignorant of reality at our own extreme peril. Read the whole thing (all emphasis mine), and realize that Neville Chamberlain in another name and another time is still Neville Chamberlain, only the consequences could be unimaginably worse when chemical and nuclear weapons become involved in what already is a clash of civilization versus barbarism (even if no one in power will say so).

"In the wake of 9/11, the American people did not care about democratizing the Muslim world, or, for that matter, about the Muslim world in general. They still don't. They want Islamic terrorists and their state sponsors crushed. As for the aftermath, they want something stable that no longer threatens our interests; they care not a wit whether Baghdad's new government looks like Teaneck's. To the contrary, Bush-administration officials — notwithstanding goo-gobs of evidence that terrorists have used the freedoms of Western democracies, including our own, the better to plot mass murder — have conned themselves into believing that democracy, not decisive force, is the key to conquering this enemy.

Islamic countries, moreover, are not rejecting Western democracy because they haven't experienced it. They reject it on principle. For them, the president's euphonious rhetoric about democratic empowerment is offensive. They believe, sincerely, that authority to rule comes not from the people but from Allah; that there is no separation of religion and politics; that free people do not have authority to legislate contrary to Islamic law; that Muslims are superior to non-Muslims, and men to women; and that violent jihad is a duty whenever Muslims deem themselves under attack, no matter how speciously.

These people are not morons. They adhere to a highly developed belief system that is centuries old, wildly successful, and for which many are willing to die. They haven't refused to democratize because the Federalist Papers are not yet out in Arabic. They decline because their leaders have freely chosen to decline. They see us as the mortal enemy of the life they believe Allah commands. Their demurral is wrong, but it is principled, not ignorant, and we insult them by suggesting otherwise. ...

So now comes James Baker's Iraq Study Group, riding in on its bipartisan white horse to save the day. The democracy project having failed, this blue-ribbon panel's solution is: Let's talk.

Let's talk with our enemies, Iran and Syria. Let's talk with terror abettors as if they were good guys — just like us...as if they were just concerned neighbors trying to stop the bloodshed in Iraq, instead of the dons who've been commanding it all along. Someone, please explain something to me: How does it follow that, because Islamic cultures reject democracy, we somehow need to talk to Iran and Syria? What earthly logic that supports talking with these Islamic terrorists would not also support negotiating with al Qaeda — a demarche not even a Kennedy School grad would dare propose? There's none. ...

Sitting down with evil legitimizes evil. As a practical matter, all it accomplishes is to convey weakness. This spring — after trumpeting the Bush Doctrine's "you're with us or you're with the terrorists" slogan for five years — Secretary of State Rice pathetically sought to bribe Iran out of its nuclear program with a menu of all carrots and no sticks, and certainly no demand that the mullahs stop fomenting terror. The result? They're still laughing at us, even as they build their bombs, harbor al Qaeda operatives, and arm the militias killing American soldiers in Iraq. ...

For our own sake, we need to respect the enemy. That means grasping that he's implacable, that he means us only harm, and that he must be subdued, not appeased. Negotiating with such evil is always a mistake, for any accommodation with evil is, by definition, evil."