Here’s a troubling report at the New York Sun on what we can expect from the Baker-Hamilton study group: Baker Panel Aide Expects Israel Will Be Pressed.

WASHINGTON — An expert adviser to the Baker-Hamilton commission expects the 10-person panel to recommend that the Bush administration pressure Israel to make concessions in a gambit to entice Syria and Iran to a regional conference on Iraq.

The assessment was shared in a confidential memorandum — obtained yesterday by The New York Sun — to expert advisers to the commission from a former CIA station chief for Saudi Arabia, Raymond Close. Mr. Close is a member of the expert group advising the commission and was a strong advocate throughout the panel’s deliberations for renewed American diplomacy with Iran and Syria. In the memo, Mr. Close shares his “personal predictions and expectations” for what the Iraq Study Group will recommend in its final report next month.

Mr. Close writes that he expects the study group to urge President Bush to convene a regional conference “to enlist the support of neighboring states in establishing stability in Iraq.” Among the participants in the regional conference should be “all principal states of the region,” including Iran, Syria, and Israel. The inclusion of Israel, according to Mr. Close, is crucial because it will provide the only leverage by which Iran and Syria can be enticed to help stabilize Iraq.

“To have any realistic chance of success, I believe that the process would have to start with the announcement of a major initiative, promoted and vigorously supported by the United States, to reach a comprehensive resolution to the Israel-Arab crisis through a process of reasonable compromise and accommodation between Israel and its Arab neighbors,” he writes.

While it is widely expected that the Baker-Hamilton commission will recommend renewed diplomacy with Iran and Syria in an effort to share the burden in stabilizing the country, the content of such negotiations has until now been a mystery. According to Mr. Close, the talks will center around a resolution of the conflict between the Jewish state and the Arab and Islamic world.

More about Ray Close and James Baker at American Thinker: Will James Baker Stay True to Form?