The Iraqi Study Group report, solicited by Congress and released in December 2006, was nominally the product of a joint commission comprised of the United States Institute of Peace, the Center for the Study of the Presidency, and the Baker Institute at Rice University. In theory, the committee heard expert testimony, deliberated, and came up with their recommendation. As is often the case in Washington, the Congressmen who sought the group’s creation had a preconceived notion of its outcome, and the study group’s chairmen basically used the expert testimony for show: If you want to mute criticism in Washington, stroke experts’ egos even as you ignore them.

While this was going on, Edward Djerejian, a former assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs who also had served as an ambassador to Syria (and Israel), reportedly drafted the actual report. Both inside and outside government, Djerejian has long counseled engagement with the Assad family, no matter how much terrorism and how abusive their leadership was. Bashar al-Assad is “a very intelligent interlocutor and I think that he does understand the tremendous challenge of moving a country like Syria forward given all the problems,” Djerejian explained a decade ago. He often fought behind-the-scenes on efforts to ramp up sanctions on Syria. Just last year, he was suggesting that the Syrian government might be open to doing business with U.S. information technology firms, and many around Washington have said in the past that Djerejian himself might be open to doing some business or fundraising in Syria.

Because Djerejian was a realists’ realist, when the report came out, it was no surprise that it included the usual trope about diplomacy: “It is our view that in diplomacy, a nation can and should engage its adversaries and enemies to try to resolve conflicts and differences consistent with its own interests. Accordingly, the Support Group should actively engage Iran and Syria in its diplomatic dialogue, without preconditions,” In exchange for Syrian assistance on Iraq, the report drifted into left field, “In exchange for these actions and in the context of a full and secure peace agreement, the Israelis should return the Golan Heights, with a U.S. security guarantee for Israel that could include an international force on the border, including U.S. troops if requested by both parties.

Headlines get forgotten quickly in Washington, but sometimes it’s worth looking back on just how wrong the diplomats were about Syria and about Bashar al-Assad. Had we begun a proactive strategy to weaken the Assad regime and support Syrian reformers then, we might not have lost five years of opportunity figuring out ways to appease dictators, sellout allies, and otherwise tilt at windmills.