Is the situation in Iraq improving?

[RTFirefly]

Juan Cole makes the point that, whatever the form of Iraq’s government, there are maybe a half-dozen Iraqis whose opinion really matters these days: Kurds Talabani and Barzani, Shi’ites Maliki, Hakim, and Sadr, and Sunni VP Hashimi.

Hakim is in Iran for the next several months getting chemotherapy for lung cancer. al-Sadr’s in hiding. And Talabani just went to an American fat farm for a three-week stay.

And that’s what’s happening well in advance of the Iraqi parliament’s upcoming two-month vacation. So we shouldn’t expect jack shit to be accomplished on the political front between now and September.

Since the whole point of the ‘surge’ was to create a space for the political process to move forward, exactly what was the point of its first eight months?

[elucidator]

Looks more to me like these guys don’t want to spend the next couple of months in the Green Zone, more than anything else.

[marshmallow]

I hear Sweden has lovely weather this time of the year.

[Der_Trihs]

@xtisme

Do you really believe that they are fighting each other…because we are there?

Well, it’s not the ONLY reason, but it’s an important reason. Simply by being there, we render the rise of a legitimate ( in the eyes of the Iraqis ) central authority impossible. If they did all come to an agreement and tried to establish order, that would require centralization; at which point either we’d smash them ( since we’d have a target for once ), or we’d decide to accept them, which would render them illlegitmate collaborators. Simply our recognizing such a group would probably cause it to break up again into factions.

[RTFirefly]

Morgue Data Show Increase In Sectarian Killings in Iraq

BAGHDAD, May 23 – More than three months into a U.S.-Iraqi security offensive designed to curtail sectarian violence in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, Health Ministry statistics show that such killings are rising again.

From the beginning of May until Tuesday, 321 unidentified corpses, many dumped and showing signs of torture and execution, have been found across the Iraqi capital, according to morgue data provided by a Health Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. The data showed that the same number of bodies were found in all of January, the month before the launch of the Baghdad security plan.

[marshmallow]

Well, that’s obviously wrong. The president of the United States, George W. Bush, has said that the surge is working, that sectarian violence is down. The WaPo must not talking to the right people or investigating hard enough, because if what they say is true then the president is either a liar or woefully misinformed on the situation on the ground. I know this can’t be right because he swore to restore integrity to the White House and, moreover, he listens to his generals and commanders. Besides, Tony Snow also seemed to think everything is going fine and he’s a former newsman of one of the most trusted news channels in the country.

[The_Hamster_King]

@RTFirefly

Morgue Data Show Increase In Sectarian Killings in Iraq

“The level of sectarian violence is an important indicator of whether or not the strategy that we have implemented is working.”

– George W. Bush, May 10, 2007

[RedFury]

A drive for global domination has put us in greater danger

@Al Gore

***The pursuit of “dominance” in foreign policy led the Bush administration to ignore the UN, to do serious damage to our most important alliances, to violate international law, and to cultivate the hatred and contempt of many in the rest of the world. The seductive appeal of exercising unconstrained unilateral power led this president to interpret his powers under the constitution in a way that brought to life the worst nightmare of the founders. Any policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the US and recruits for al-Qaida, but also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating terrorists who wish to harm and intimidate America. Instead of “dominance”, we should be seeking pre-eminence in a world where nations respect us and seek to follow our leadership and adopt our values.

With the blatant failure by the government to respect the rule of law, we face a great challenge in restoring America’s moral authority in the world. Our moral authority is our greatest source of strength. It is our moral authority that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap calculations of this wilful president.

The Bush administration’s objective of attempting to establish US domination over any potential adversary was what led to the hubristic, tragic miscalculation of the Iraq war - a painful misadventure marked by one disaster after another, based on one mistaken assumption after another. But the people who paid the price have been the American men and women in uniform trapped over there, and the Iraqis themselves. At the level of our relations with the rest of the world, the administration has willingly traded respect for the US in favour of fear. That was the real meaning of “shock and awe”. This administration has coupled its theory of US dominance with a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, regardless of whether the threat to be pre-empted is imminent or not.

The doctrine is presented in open-ended terms, which means that Iraq is not necessarily the last application. In fact, the very logic of the concept suggests a string of military engagements against a succession of sovereign states - Syria, Libya, North Korea, Iran - but the implication is that wherever the combination exists of an interest in weapons of mass destruction together with an ongoing role as host to, or participant in, terrorist operations, the doctrine will apply. It also means that the Iraq resolution created the precedent for pre-emptive action anywhere, whenever this or any future president decides that it is time. The risks of this doctrine stretch far beyond the disaster in Iraq. The policy affects the basic relationship between the US and the rest of the world. Article 51 of the UN charter recognises the right of any nation to defend itself, including the right to take pre-emptive action in order to deal with imminent threats.

By now, the administration may have begun to realise that national and international cohesion are indeed strategic assets. But it is a lesson long delayed and clearly not uniformly and consistently accepted by senior members of the cabinet. From the outset, the administration has operated in a manner calculated to please the portion of its base that occupies the far right, at the expense of solidarity among all Americans and between our country and our allies. The gross violations of human rights authorised by Bush at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and dozens of other locations around the world, have seriously damaged US moral authority and delegitimised US efforts to continue promoting human rights.

President Bush offered a brief and halfhearted apology to the Arab world, but he should make amends to the American people for abandoning the Geneva conventions, and to the US forces for sending troops into harm’s way while ignoring the best advice of their commanders. Perhaps most importantly, he owes an explanation to all those men and women throughout our world who have held high the ideal of the US as a shining goal to inspire their own efforts to bring about justice and the rule of law…***

I’d urge everyone to read the rest of the speech. Best American politician – by faaar – since he officially got out of politics.

Wonder what that says about the system?

[XT]

I read it already. I agree…I wish ole Al would run. But he isn’t going too. He has more important things (in his own opinion) to do than run for president. I posted a link about him from Time in another thread…was a really good story on the man.

-XT

[Dinsdale]

Actually, following up An Inconvenient Truth with his latest book/speeches, I’m thinking he might be a more effective agent of change out of office than if he were in.
I wish he could have communicated so effectively 8 years ago…