Bush might have to lower Iraq goals

Warren P. Strobel and Drew Brown, McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — President Bush opened the way Wednesday to a new approach to concluding the Iraq War — probably on terms different than he’d once hoped.

Attention is expected to pivot quickly to the work of a bipartisan panel led by former Secretary of State James Baker III and retired congressman Lee Hamilton that is reviewing U.S. options in Iraq.

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Key Excerpt:

Return of the realists

Taken together, the expanding role of Baker and Gates appears to signal the return of foreign policy “realists” to positions of influence. Realists stress advancing U.S. interests by working with allies and avoid idealistic policies such as intervention in other countries to promote democracy. Most of the hawkish group that most strongly backed the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, sometimes known as neoconservatives, are now gone, among them Rumsfeld, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Pentagon aide Douglas Feith.