Iraq, The Day After

by DemFromCT

Now that we've had our vicarous thrill at shooting a terrorist (and Zarqawi was a vicious one), we're now back in the reality we posted on yesterday.

As news of Mr. Zarqawi's death settled into homes across the country, Iraqis at lunch tables and in living rooms found themselves wondering what, if anything, would be different. A relentless stream of killings and kidnappings has choked the routines of life to a trickle, and the death of Mr. Zarqawi, while welcome, did not seem likely to stop the violence.

The painful, familiar beat resumed almost immediately. Five young women, one of them pregnant, were killed in a drive-by shooting outside a university. Six bombs, four of them in cars, killed 37 people and wounded 85 in largely Shiite areas in Baghdad.

Late Thursday, the government imposed a Friday curfew for Baghdad from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., during time for Friday Prayer, and a nighttime curfew in Diyala Province, where Mr. Zarqawi was killed, until further notice.

"Zarqawi is part of a story, and this story will not end when he is finished," said Dhia Majid, a university professor whose brother, a pediatrician, and his wife, a pharmacist, were shot dead in western Baghdad last summer. "It's not Iraq, it's a slaughterhouse."

A failed war and a foreign policy disaster isn't reversed with one small victory. What this will do is halt Bush's political slide for a few weeks in an otherwise slow summer, then accelerarte it when people see it's yet another unkept promise about Iraq.

I notice the heavy breathers from the Right take comfort in thinking that we pay attention to Bush's poll numbers in the same breath as discussing Iraq. The reason for that is crystal clear; this is Bush' s war, and unless he takes a major political hit, it will go on and on and on... and so will he, pretending the country supports him (it doesn't) and this war (it supports the soldiers, not the mission).

Come November, Iraq will be the issue, not immigration. Democrats need to get their act together before then, and they need to get their act together specifically on Iraq, or we'll see another wasted opportunity however many seats Dems take in the election.

The country wants an alternative. This one isn't working.

Comments

[Vigilante]

"...a foreign policy disaster isn't reversed with one small victory."

Let us not forget that Bush's un-provoked, unnecessary and largely unilateral invasion and occupation of Iraq (UULUIOI) has blown a previously check-mated state into four violent pieces: Kurdistan, Sunnistan, Shiitestan, and the Green Zone.

In which of these is there any room for optimism?

[Melanie]

Zarqawi's death wasn't any kind of a piece of a strategy, it was dumb luck. Absent strategy, which doesn't seem to be Rummy's long suit, nothing changes. Nothing.

[ab initio]

Very good post, DemFromCT.

I agree with your conclusion that Iraq will be front and central for the Fall election. All the polls show that is the single most important issue for the public.

The Dem narrative that I'd like to see is: Bush lied and bamboozled the country into war & occupation in Iraq. Then he FUBAR'd the occupation. We will solve the occupation problem with the Murtha plan and we will investigate the bamboozlement and bring to light how it took place and all the enablers.