Meanwhile In Iraq, Democracy Faces A Stumble

Oh snap. The surge didn’t stop the sectarian separatism that has been part of the Iraq political and religious structure for centuries.
Wasn’t O’Hanlon one of those that supported the war from the beginning and was a big proponent of the surge? How will Lieberman and McCain explain this turn of events? Will they expect us to stay and reverse troop removal?
How we managed to take a mess of a country and make it worse is hard to understand. My humble opinion says get out of there. We are not solving anything and no more American lives need to be lost to an immoral war.

One more thing, let’s ask Bremmer, Senor, Cheney, the villager echo chamber, and all the others that got Iraq so wrong for their opinion. Never mind that they will be defending their mistakes and proposing more mistakes. They are the experts. The Sunday talk shows and cable news networks like their easy access.
It might cause to much introspection to talk to those that opposed the war from the beginning and get their perspectives.

Joe Klein:

Two scholars of the Iraq conflict, Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack…

You must be joking.
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Why not also refer to Tom Friedman as a “scholar of the Iraq conflict”, while you’re at it?
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These two war proponents have been mistaken about just about every prediction and description they’ve ever made.
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With “scholars” like O’Hanlon and Pollack on the case, no wonder we’re still wasting lives and treasure in Iraq.
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Call these two what they are, Joe Klein: discredited pro-invasion writers from a failed policy think-tank.

This is a problem. Let’s hope that Obama can convince them not to do this. It would be awful if Iraq descends back into chaos.

Yes, I called Michael Scherer “Joe Klein.”
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Re-reading this, I suppose it wasn’t the clearest rhetorical device I could have used.
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Bad call.

Will they expect us to stay and reverse troop removal?
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Yes, that’s the point of acknowledging any bad news:

That is an extraordinarily dangerous message to send right now, when the United States is trying hard to withdraw…the likelihood of electoral violence will skyrocket, and American soldiers will inevitably be called on to halt it.

See?
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Good news means staying worked, and so we have to stay.
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Bad news means that staying didn’t work, and so we have to stay.
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There is no situation or event in the eyes of the perennially wrong that mandates cutting the enormous losses of the occupation, and leaving Iraq entirely to Iraqis to manage.
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That would be literally unthinkable for Pollack and O’Hanlon, because then it would mean a final end to their fantasies of reconstructing their own credibility on Iraq.

Thanks SZ for puttng this most succinctly. I am not usually surprised by the density of the traditional media, but my jaw dropped the other day when I saw Paul Bremer, once “Governor” of Iraq, being seriously interviewed on CNN for his opinions. The man that supported the illegal invasion, the man that distributed millions in unaccounted funds, the man who disbanded the Iraqi army.
Everytime I see one of those who perpetrated the Iraq debacle interviewed, I get queasy. We learned nothing. Joe Klein, Thomas Friedman(he of Friedman Units: FU) and others in the press who supported the invasion and the surge can take their opinions and stuff them. All of these people have no reason to be respected for their opinions. In fact they owe huge apologies for their opinions.

Oh Irony!

Yes, this is indeed a full step back for the struggle in Iraq to further Democracy in that country. A goal that cannot be disputed at this stage of the game by all Americans as a noble struggle indeed.
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I wonder what the people of Iraq have to say? Was there any reports on how the people feel about this Michael?
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As we have seen in our own Democracy, people tend to polarize around specific political issues that meet with their own ideological base. How closely does the Iraqi Constitution mirror that of our own?
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Perhaps we as a “big brother/sister” now to Iraq, can send in some of our learned scholars to better inform the Iraqi masses what exactly Democracy is all about.
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I am sure shouts from the left will be to “cut and run”. Perhaps we fail because we will not take the further time needed to teach them what they do not know.

I was in Desert Storm and also got an Iraqi political asylum here. There are 25 million people in Iraq. I would hope that you are not indifferent to their fate.

new freedom how many 10,000s more Iraqis have to die, be wounded, be displaced before they get the lesson we are teaching them? How many American service people have to die and suffer wounds before their duty is over? Maybe we should just get a big paddle and go from town to town applying it to their bottoms until they get the lesson.
Remember how we set out to teach the Native Americans what was good for them? Maybe we just need to put the Iraqis on reservations.
You bet I want to “cut and run”. We have been there for years and managed only to turn a Sunni dictatorship into a Shite dictorship. Our trusted friend from early on, the Bush pal, Chalibi is still involved. This isn’t a step back. There never was a forward step.
New, perhaps you would like to bring in the missionaries also to let the poor, uneducated, brown people know what they are missing.
How colonial of you.

spob, I have been concerned for their fate since the Bush administration started the Iraq war on false pretenses. I still care about them and am heartly sorry we have made such a mess there. However, we are not helping.
The irony I find in your original statement is your calling on Obama for diplomacy when you have so often mocked his methods.

He’s the only president we have. I am not confident in his abilities, but I have hope.
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As for Iraq, well, I’d say most are far better off now than they were under Saddam.

Neocon favorite Ahmed Chalibi, still on the case. The man who received around $100 million tax-payer dollars for bogus stories. Shows you how much has changed in Iraq since the last admin.
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From his Wikipedia (link):
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Chalabi is a controversial figure for many reasons. In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, under his guidance the INC (Iraqi National Congress)… provided a major portion of the information on which U.S. Intelligence based its condemnation of Saddam Hussein, including reports of weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Nearly all, if not all, of this information has turned out to be of questionable accuracy…
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Initially, Chalabi enjoyed close political and business relationships with some members of the U.S. government, including some prominent neoconservatives within the Pentagon. Chalabi is said to have had political contacts within the Project for the New American Century, most notably with Paul Wolfowitz… and Richard Perle…

A goal that cannot be disputed at this stage of the game by all Americans as a noble struggle indeed.

Ah, glorious war!

In honor of Martin Luther King

“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government…. There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that would praise you when you say, “Be nonviolent toward Jim Clark,” but will curse and damn you when you say, “Be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children!” There is something wrong with that press….” MLK
http://www.radioproject.org/sound/King5.mp3

“The challenge on MLK Day 2010 is to accept the fact that we have dodged the part of his example intended for us, comfortable Americans who made war and violence our default choices. To honor Dr. King, we have to change, and we have to take President Obama with us.”
Rusty Nelson US Army Lt. Veteran Vietnam

For the first time in seven years, Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack may be correct. al-Maliki has learned well from his fellow Shiites in Iran. Opposition parties will eventually be crushed and only al-Maliki’s allies will be allowed anywhere near the government. The Sunni’s may ratchet up the violence, but the Shiites have a large enough army to put down any uprising. After the US troops leave, Iraq will have it’s civil war. Since the downfall of Hussein, a civil war has been inevitable. No matter when we leave, a civil war will start brewing. The Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds will settle their differences the old-fashioned way.

Though I have to give credit to MS for posting LFABJ upstream, apr you are spot-on. Excellent quote of the many MLK made about the contradictions in our discourse (that are, if anything, more pronounced 40 years after his death). The media has almost entirely sanitized MLK of any larger leftist tendencies. The scope of his voice must be limited to civil rights for African Americans in his time and that’s it. “There’s something wrong with that press.” Wonderfully understated.
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IMO, that press takes the blood on their hands to their graves. As an agnostic, I can only hope there is some afterlife during which justice will be meted out.

jc thanks. Recently I read on NRO that MLK was actually a Republican. Goldberg and others at that site, of course, think that FDR was a facist and Lord of the Rings is a conservative movie. Ah, the delusions.
As a fellow agnostic, I would like justice meted out in this life. Not likely though,

marvyt: That is a good analyses. Civil war is inevitable and there is nothing we can do to stop it unless we want eternal occupation.

I’d say this was cynical and ridiculous except for the fact that it might be true. The modern Iraq was cobbled together by the British without truly reconciling Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. Iraq is not a “real,” organic country. Of course, countries change over time. England was an Anglo-Saxon nation until a thousand years ago when some Normans invaded, obliterated the ruling class and imposed a new language and new culture that merged with the preceding one. That’s fine and dandy now, but in 1066 it wasn’t. Iraq may be fine and dandy in 3010, but I’m a bit more concerned about 2010. And 2011. And so on.
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What an effing disaster. And there are no good, clear ways out of it. If we stay, we continue to risk eternal occupation, as apr2563 puts it. If we leave, we “cut and run”–or, even if we ignore that label, we are standing aside and watching a bloodbath that may not exactly be of our making but has been exacerbated by our actions.

“Ah, glorious war!
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It is worth repeating, even if it falls on deaf ears.
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“As we have seen in our own Democracy, people tend to polarize around specific political issues that meet with their own ideological base. …….”

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Someone else can fill in the rest.

Shakespeare, there will be no “cut and run”. We have spent billions building military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan; we will be manning those bases and policing the region indefinitely. This was the plan since the neocons first introduced Chalabi to then-President Clinton.

As for Iraq, well, I’d say most are far better off now than they were under Saddam.
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Unless you’re one of the 1 million or so dead Iraqis or one of the 4.5 million refugees or don’t like 20 ft blast walls dividing your city or you’re not a Shiite aligned with Maliki…
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My guess is that the majority of Iraqis wish the Americans never showed up.

The Sunni’s may ratchet up the violence, but the Shiites have a large enough army to put down any uprising. After the US troops leave, Iraq will have it’s civil war.
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Remember, marvyt, we’ve been arming and paying the “Sunni Awakening” for years now. Sectarian violence is still high in Iraq and the “Withdrawal Will Lead to Civil War” movie is already scripted.
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Even Petraeus stenographer/cheerleader and war-apologist Thomas Ricks acknowledges the truth:
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Petraeus helped lay the groundwork for a much more prolonged engagement in Iraq. The surge itself would last 18 months, with the last of the five additional brigades leaving last summer. But what neither he nor Bush had articulated — and what lawmakers, the public and even some high up the military chain of command did not recognize — was that the new strategy was in fact a road map for what military planners called “the long war.”
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