The Iraq Study Group, under the co-chairmanship of former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton, presented its much-heralded Report this week, with every anticipated recommendation materializing from its 160 pages: stage-managing a timetabled American exit from Iraq, deferring (and thus shelving) the question of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, coddling Damascus and Teheran in return for an end to their support for terror in Iraq, orchestrating another round of Israeli concessions to the recreant Palestinian Authority - of which conflict the Iraqi situation is purportedly a by-product, ad nauseum.

The Report has been expertly dissected by others and the effort will not be rehearsed here. Instead, one point of interest - the reaction in the Arab world:

The Syrian Foreign Ministry at last finds something out of America to like - the contention that the absence of an Arab-Israeli peace lies at the root of the region's problem. According to Mustafa Bakri , the editor of the Egyptian daily Al-Osboa, the Report foreshadows"the end of America" and urges Arab countries to" capture the moment as America now is in its weakest period." The opposition paper in the same American ally, Al-Wafd, deduces from the Report that Bush has conceded"defeat in Iraq." Abdel Moneim Said of Cairo's Al Ahram Center reminds people that this Report, hailed by the New York Times as a piece of prudent and wise counsel, will mean that"America will highly suffer the loss of its reputation and credibility in the region." Across the porous Egypt/Palestinian Authority border at Gaza, Abu Ayman, a senior leader of the terrorist group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, opines that"the Report proves that this is the era of Islam and of jihad."

At least some Middle Easterners understand the true import of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group Report. Does President Bush?