Unqualified Offerings

Okay, that overstates, but I think that when Kevin writes
Fine. So what are these complexities the ISG failed to discern? What do the Iraqis themselves think we ought to do?
Nothing, apparently. If you click the link[to a Washington Post article on elite Iraqi reactions to the ISG report] you will not find [...]

Sometime today I decided that the ISG report was basically a really longwinded way to say “As they stand up, we’ll stand down.” But that industrious Tim Lee said it before I could:
That’s the optimistic scenario. And it’s not appreciably different from the optimistic scenario the Bush administration has been touting for the last couple [...]

Reuters finds the most important tidbit in the ISG report:
Among the 1,000 people who work in the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, only 33 are Arabic speakers and only six speak the language fluently, according to the Iraq Study Group report released on Wednesday.
“All of our efforts in Iraq, military and civilian, are handicapped by Americans’ [...]

I have not read the ISG report (pdf). I have read carping about it, from Yglesias, Ackerman and Joyner so far. By the time I read it you’ll be sick of hearing about the thing. Hell, by the time I hit publish on this blog entry you’ll be sick of hearing about the thing.
Don’t the [...]