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The Man Who Knows Too LittleWhat Rudy Giuliani's greedy decision to quit the Iraq Study Group reveals about his candidacy.

By Fred KaplanPosted Thursday, June 21, 2007, at 6:44 PM ET

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Second, bipartisan doesn't mean nonpartisan. James Baker—the Bush family's longtime consigliere, the Republican savior in the 2000 election—was the most non-nonpartisan co-chair that one could imagine. Giuliani's political ambitions, which were clearly detectable, would hardly have tainted the proceedings.

Third, it was widely assumed at the time that Baker-Hamilton would serve as Bush's vehicle for getting out of—or somehow otherwise resolving—Iraq. And Giuliani, like all other mainstream party members, was still very much in Bush's camp. To be a part of this 10-member panel—to claim the prestige of such august company, to play the role of politico-strategic statesman, and to gain instant credibility on a topic to which he'd previously had no exposure—should have been regarded as an enviable opportunity, both on its own terms and as a boost to his political fortune.

But—given a chance to elevate his standing, serve the country, and get educated on the nation's most pressing issue—Rudy went for the money.

Why did he accept the appointment in the first place? Many blue-ribbon panels are pro forma assemblages: Big names fill the roster; lowly staffers do the work. Giuliani may have signed up, fully aware of the gig's political value—then dropped out upon learning that it would cut into business.

It was not as if Giuliani feared the group might take positions that conflicted with his own. For, as Josh Marshall and his researchers at Talking Points Memo discovered (to their surprise), Giuliani has no position on Iraq. He has long supported Bush's decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein. But on the question of what to do now, he's been mum. Last week, Giuliani issued "the 12 Commitments," a document that lays out the agenda of his presidency. The First Commitment concerns terrorism ("I will keep America on offense in the Terrorists' War on Us"), but Iraq isn't mentioned at all.

Asked about the omission, Giuliani said that the idea was to address issues that will still be with us in January 2009. "Iraq may get better, Iraq may get worse," he said. "We may be successful in Iraq, we may not be. I don't know the answer to that. That's in the hands of other people."

First, what a bizarrely evasive comment, even by politicians' standards. Second, does Giuliani have the slightest doubt that, whatever happens in the next 19 months, Iraq will remain one of the most urgent topics that a new president will have to confront?

The fact is, Giuliani has no idea what he's talking about. On the campaign trail he says that the terrorist threat "is something I understand better than anyone else running for president." As the mayor of New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, he may have lived more intimately with the consequences of terrorism, but this has no bearing on his inexperience or his scant insight in the realm of foreign policy. He is, in fact, that most dangerous would-be world leader: a man who doesn't seem to know how much he doesn't know.

Take even his relatively straightforward First Commitment—to stay "on offense" against the terrorists. What does that mean, exactly? How does it differ from what Bush is doing now, or from what any other candidate, Republican or Democrat, would do?

In a campaign speech two months ago, he spoke of the threat from the Iranians, then lumped them in with al-Qaida, saying, "Their movement has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us." When New York Times reporter Marc Santoro asked him afterward to clarify the remark, inasmuch as Iran had no connection to 9/11 and that its people are mainly Shiites while al-Qaida is composed of Sunnis, Giuliani replied, "They have a similar objective in their anger at the modern world."