• That’s what we’re saying, but are we sure?

  See, we’ve heard similar claims before, but they ultimately just move back in. And since we’re going to draw down the troops who helped get the terrorists out, this feels like another case of temporary good news that could very well give way to chaos yet again.

  From the NY Times:
  

  BAGHDAD, Nov. 7 — American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the “surge” to depart as planned.

  Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of United States forces in Baghdad, also said that American troops had yet to clear some 13 percent of the city, including Sadr City and several other areas controlled by Shiite militias. But, he said, “there’s just no question” that violence had declined since a spike in June.

  “Murder victims are down 80 percent from where they were at the peak,” and attacks involving improvised bombs are down 70 percent, he said.

  See, this is the problem with treating al Qaeda as if it were a nation. It’s not as if we pushed Germany out of France, and we all know the terrorists have simply moved into some other area with fewer troops. That’s what they do. And as we continue to stay in Iraq, new people will join al Qaeda and they’ll be able to move into Baghdad and begin to wreak havoc.

  Yep, I’m a gloom and doomer, and it’s specifically because we’ve never figured out a way to solve this problem. Because folks, this isn’t a solution, it’s merely a band-aid. Sure, deaths have decreased in the short term, but our expenditures keep increasing and our all volunteer force is being decimated by PTSD.

  And again, let’s not forget that the surge was meant to create an atmosphere so the Iraqis could build a solid government.

  Has that happened?
  

  And though Sunni extremist groups could revive and “reinfest very quickly,” General Fil said, Iraq’s leaders should now have the peace they need to build a trusted, cross-sectarian government. But progress toward that, he said, has been “disappointing.”

  Disappointing means no. And we’ll continue to see “disappointing” results and our soldiers will keep dying and we’ll continue to fall deeper into debt.

  Again, it’s good that al Qaeda is out of Baghdad, but it should have been us out of their first.

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• Lindsey Graham asked some very pointed questions to Petraeus and Crocker last week, and David Broder picked up on where he was going.

  First, the exchange…
  

  After a few more questions, Graham turned to Crocker and confronted him with a surprising question: “What’s the difference between a dysfunctional government and a failed state?”

  Crocker replied: “In a parliamentary democratic system such as Iraq has, there is a mechanism for the removal of governments that people get tired of. Parliament can simply vote no confidence.”

  That sounded to me — and to Graham — like a hint that the United States would welcome a change from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki if new and more flexible leadership were to appear in Baghdad.

  Graham wanted to underline that message. “Would you agree with me,” he asked Crocker, “that Iraq is a dysfunctional government at this moment in time?”

  “Certainly, it is a challenged government,” Crocker replied.

  When Broder followed up with Graham, he appeared to give a very no nonsense response as to why he asked the questions and the way he asked them…
  

  But Graham said that he thought Crocker was “making a pretty major statement that the clock is running out on the Maliki government — and we can have an effect on it by what we do here.”

  “There are alternatives,” he said — Shiite political leaders who are willing, for example, to tour the Baghdad jails with Graham and be photographed with Sunnis who are protesting the imprisonment of so many of their coreligionists. “The good news,” Graham said, “is that Kurds and Sunnis and Shiites are ready to play politics. Judges feel more secure because of the surge, and that is important, because all of them have experienced rough justice.

  “What we do can affect the outcome. But if we don’t see progress on two of the three big issues — oil revenues, de-Baathification, provincial elections — in the next 90 days, it may not happen. And Iraq could be a failed state.”

  Three months folks…and that’s from one of the lead proponents of the war and the surge.

  As Broder puts it, “that sounds realistic.”

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• First from the BBC:

  Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, 37, led what was known as the “Anbar Awakening”, an alliance of Sunni Arab tribes that rose up against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

  US President George Bush met and endorsed the sheikh last week in Iraq.

  The White House, which has held up the movement in Anbar province as an example for the rest of Iraq, condemned his assassination as “an outrage”.

  However that meeting may have actually been causal in his assassination. Over at The American Prospect Marc Lynch writes:

  While Americans celebrate their cordial relations with certain tribal shaykhs, the insurgency’s leaders publicly fumed that the fruits of their victory might be snatched by undeserving interlopers. The widely disseminated pictures of President Bush shaking hands with Sattar Abu Risha, the epitome of such illegitimate bon vivantes, were likely his death warrant.

  Additionally he goes on to point out that while here Abdul Sattar Abu Rish claims to have told W “that his people had achieved in four months what the American military could not achieve in four years.” and that Abu Rish is not alone in speaking or seeing the situation in Anbar this way:
  

  In their literature and public rhetoric, the Sunni insurgency has already defeated the American occupation — which is why the Americans stopped fighting them and came to them for help in fighting al-Qaeda. One discovers virtually nothing in this literature of the American conceit that our forces wore them out or forced them to come to the table.

  If Lynch is speaking truly then what we’ve been seeing in Anbar is a short term gain that will ultimately prove to have a high long term cost. That is, of course, provided that the US military leaders aren’t aware of that. So ultimately the real questions to ask are “Who is using who?” and “Who is spinning the real situation to their people?”. I’m hoping that the answers to those questions are simply “Us” and “Them” but the simple fact of the matter is, that in order to find out, all we can do is wait and to quote Tom Petty, “The waiting is the hardest part.”.

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• Not that this is surprising:

  WASHINGTON - As key Republican support for President Bush’s Iraq war strategy begins to erode, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman today urged fellow lawmakers and the public to give the American military surge time to work.

  “We’ve got to think not about the next election but the next generation,” he told a Capitol Hill news conference. The U.S. military surge, Lieberman contended, has the enemy “on the run.”

  “In places where the surge is focused,” he said, notably Anbar Province and elsewhere, “security is undeniably improving.”

  Yes, folks, keep your eyes on Anbar province (where just three soldiers were killed this week), and just ignore the 20 killed and 40 injuredin a car bomb today, and please, don’t glance at the 22 beheaded bodies found in Baghdad.  And those 13 Iraqis that were killed on Monday?  Or the 31 American soldiers that have died in the last 7 days? Take Lieberman’s advice, and think about the “next generation” (and not the generation that’s sacrificing life and limb on the battlefield, ok?)

  Lieberman, who recently visited Iraq, was asked whether he got solid, independent information that he could use in his judgment.

  “You’ve got to have confidence in our military leadership,” he explained, adding later, “I trust what they tell me.”

  Actually, it sounds like he trusts what the White House tells him, as Lieberman’s remarks were almost a carbon copy of the “Fact Sheet” released by the White House today.

  As more Republicans are forced to acknowledge the reality that the escalation has failed, clueless Joe continues to clings to his president, snuggling up closer to the “Commander Guy.” He is apparently unfazed by the growing body count, apparently not bothered by the stench of failure wafting from this president’s every action and every choice.  No, reality need not be acknowledged in the president’s shadow, for the darkness there, the thick atmosphere of ignorance that envelops all who bask in Bush’s presence, is so much more inviting to those enamored with war at any cost.

  

  
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