What's Going To Happen In Iraq?

by DemFromCT

What are the implications of this Sunday article in the WaPo?

Merits of Partitioning Iraq or Allowing Civil War Weighed

As the U.S. military struggles against persistent sectarian violence in Iraq, military officers and security experts find themselves in a vigorous debate over an idea that just months ago was largely dismissed as a fringe thought: that the surest -- and perhaps now the only -- way to bring stability to Iraq is to divide the country into three pieces. (emphasis mine)

Those who see the partitioning of Iraq as increasingly attractive argue that separating the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds may be the only solution to the violence that many experts believe verges on civil war. Others contend that it would simply lead to new and dangerous challenges for the United States, not least the possibility that al-Qaeda would find it easier to build a new base of operations in a partitioned Iraq.

Now the fact that this is is the paper at all, being discussed openly, speaks volumes about the PNAC failure known as Iraq. Bill Kristol was taken apart by Colbert this week (see Crooks and Liars):

Colbert: How's the New American Century, looks good to me?

Kristol: Ahh--I think...hehe yea--I'm speechless..

Colbert: Really?

Kristol: Yea...we've sort of...the Project for the New American Century is just a few people..

Colbert: Come on, it’s a terrific New American Century, right?

Kristol: Well I think we do OK.

Colbert: You Rummy Wolfowitz, Cheney, Pearle, Feith, all you guys right?

Kristol (responds timidly): Well, we fought back after 9/11..

and for good reason. This is beyond satire (but for more, check out Colbert at the WH Correspondents' Dinner). Iraq is the biggest political blunder by the US since Vietnam, and sooner or later that fact is qoing to hit Bush, Lieberman and the other Iraq supports right between the eyes, politically speaking.

We have made an incredible blunder in Iraq, one that most Bush non-supporters saw coming. We now have to figure out what to do about it; the current situation is not stable and not acceptable. Even Bush supporters are on board with that.

Snippets from Juan Cole's Informed Comment more than make the point:

Adil Abdul Mahdi, one of two vice presidents, went to see Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and he says that the ayatollah said that he agreed with the idea of ending the US troop presence in Iraq gradually.

The Bush administration used to boast that Iraqis were more optimistic about their future than Americans. I'm afraid his policies have led to a surge in pessimism in both places. A new poll in Iraq shows that a majority of Iraqis thinks their economy is bad and getting worse.  3/4s say that security is bad. 

For a wounded soldier with brain damage to later get a bill from the Bush administration for the cost of the weapon he left in Iraq's sands is just about the worse thing I have ever heard.

The LA Times reports that "An American initiative to use private security companies to protect Iraq's oil and power infrastructure collapsed amid reports of possible fraud, missing weapons and destroyed documents . . ."

Condi is making the Sunday rounds trying to play for time. Vietnamization Iraqization, "I am not a crook", Watergate scandals... why does it all sound so familiar? We all know how that story ends.

Comments

[Melanie]

Dem,

The roof of the embassy in Saigon is what is going to happen.

[Mimikatz]

Except that the Iraqis and "foreign fighters" will shoot at the helicopters with RPGs if we don't start leaving soon.

[DemFromCT]

as nice as roundup as you'll find at the moderate voice, himself a professional vantriloquist.

You could see it if you watched it live (we did): while Colbert got laughs, cutaway shots showed some members of the audience unlaughing or seemingly unamused. If in show biz you measure the success of a comedy set by the duration and volume of laughs, Bush & impersonator were a smash. By THAT standard, Colbert wasn't since he got (with a few exception) mostly softer "titters."

Yet, in terms of content, Colbert's satire was more biting, had a message and was far less playful — more akin to what you'd hear in a point-of-view "set" in a comedy club. And irony is always a tougher task.

The Internet term for irony is "snark." If done poorly it can veer into the area of clumsiness and die a painful death (that seemed to be the consensus about radio talk show host Don Imus' routine at the dinner 10 years ago.). Colbert's routine didn't go that route but clearly some audience members either didn't share his assumptions, or didn't like him sharing them in public with Bush sitting there — or didn't like to be put in a position where they would laugh and show all the world that they shared them.

[Paul Lyon]

But unless driven off, the U.S. will not abandon the four large ``enduring'' bases that are being built, and probably not the base at the Baghdad airport. Withdrawal means: redeployment back to Kuwait and the U.A.E. etc., except for the 20,000 or so troops on those bases.

[Syl]

Wishful thinking.

War, insurgency, the transformation of a corrupted and persecuted society into an economically thriving and peaceful one does not happen in a few years.

The notion that we have failed is absurd. Problems. We've got plenty of problems. But we're not finished with the job yet.

The America way is to go in and do something, make mistakes, figure them out, try something different. When something changes, we change our tactics to match. But we don't give up. It's only the whiners back home who think war is perfect and Bush should be too that are a danger to the mission.

We're giving an Arab country a chance to the join the modern world. They're having a hard time of it, but Bush hasn't given up on them yet.

Giving up on Iraq is giving up on the Iraqi people. I'm not ready to give up on them yet.

[DemFromCT]

Biden joins the list. Syl, the only wishful thinking, I'm afraid, is your own.

[Syl]

DemFromCT

Giving up on Iraq is giving up on the Iraqi people. You think that is wishful thinking? Americans have a can-do spirit and adjust to adversities. You think that is wishful thinking?

We've lost the war in Iraq. Now THAT is wishful thinking. Sad to say.

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