Common ground remains key

Can America find the common ground to act on it?

That requires a certain state of mind, as much as a precise strategy. For politicians, it means putting the country ahead of 2008 presidential ambitions and routine political bickering. It means acting with thoughtfulness, but also with urgency, because Iraq is unraveling faster than we can study it.

The Iraq Study Group, headed by James A. Baker III, a Republican, and Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, released a long-awaited report on the grim situation in Iraq. It warns against a precipitous pullback, or an open-ended, stay-the-course commitment of American troops. It recommends that the Bush administration use diplomacy to stabilize Iraq, which could lead to the withdrawal of most American troops by early 2008.

In some ways, the report feels like old news. Among the findings: The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating . Violence is increasing in scope and lethality. If the situation worsens, there is risk of a slide toward chaos.

It's gloomy but not startling to anyone who watches the nightly news. The leaks in advance of the report's official release also help to water down the bad news by making it feel like old news.

But this is one time the country should resist moving onto more urgent matters, such as the now-official breakup between actors Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn . This report represents an opportunity to act together as citizens with a common goal -- figuring the best way out of a bad war. That's the Iraq Study Group's goal. It may sound naive, but it is preferable to responding in the more common American way, as a nation of "seethers" so characterized by former senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, a member of the Iraq Study Group.

Simpson said the group's working premise is that "all people with a 'D' behind their name did not become a guard at Lenin's tomb and all people with an 'R' behind their name did not crawl out of a cave in the mountains and that maybe we can do something. And that's what we're here for, people of good will in good faith. Maybe it's corny, maybe it won't work, but it's sure as hell better than sitting there where we are right now."

As Baker said with self-deprecating sarcasm during yesterday's press conference, the report by "a bunch of has-beens is the only bipartisan report that is out there." The sarcasm came in response to a question about why President Bush should give more weight to recommendations from the "elder statesmen" of the Iraq Study Group than those of military commanders on the ground in Iraq. The answer underscores political reality -- bipartisan agreement represents the only real ticket out of a war now described in terms so grim that every citizen should worry about the outcome.

But even these bipartisan suggestions may not be enough to get Washington on the same page when it comes to this war.

During a conference call with reporters, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the Baker-Hamilton report "the first step to a bipartisan way forward." Biden then went on to critique what the Iraq Study Group "has gotten wrong"-- its rejection of any proposal to divvy up Iraq among the Kurds, Shi'ites, and Sunnis. Biden supports setting up three states, operating under a decentralized Baghdad-based government. He also talked about the hearings he plans to convene next year, out of which he hopes "will emerge a growing consensus among colleagues as to how we should proceed in a little more detail beyond what the Baker report calls for." In short, there will be another report issued by a committee whose Democratic chairman plans to run for president.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee includes other Democrats whose names are linked with presidential ambitions: Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, John Kerry of Massachusetts, and Barack Obama of Illinois. Kerry issued a press release that, in essence, said, "I told you so." The report, he said, "underscores what many of us have long been arguing: there is no military solution to our deep problems in Iraq": and he noted that 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."

Pride of authorship is not leadership. Who's going to lead us to the common ground?

Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com.