Can we go home now?
Breaking News from Reuters:
Iraqi group says reaches ceasefire with al Qaeda
An Iraqi militant group said on Wednesday it has reached a ceasefire deal with Iraq's wing of al Qaeda to end clashes between the two Sunni insurgent groups waging a violent campaign against U.S.-led forces in Iraq.
"A deal has been reached between the Islamic Army in Iraq and al Qaeda in Iraq that stipulates an immediate end to all military operation between the two sides in all sectors including capture operation," the Islamis Army in Iraq said in a statement on a Web site used by militants including al Qaeda.
That was the real purpose of the surge right - to give some breathing space to promote political reconciliation?
Oh, dang these are the wrong groups. Well how’s it going with the ‘right’ groups? Is the surge working? From today’s LA Times:
Iraq's government is teetering on the edge. Maliki's Cabinet is filled with officials who are deeply estranged from one another and more loyal to their parties than to the government as a whole. Some are jostling to unseat the prime minister. Few, IF ANY, have accepted the basic premise of a government whose power is shared among each of Iraq's warring sects and ethnic groups.
snip
Even Maliki's top political advisor, Sadiq Rikabi, says he doubts the prime minister will be able to win passage of key legislation ardently sought by U.S. officials, including a law governing the oil industry and one that would allow more Sunni Arabs to gain government jobs.
"We hope to achieve some of them, but solving the Iraqi problems and resolving the different challenges in the [next] three months would need a miracle," Rikabi said.
No doubt the oil deal is the ‘reconciliation’ that Darth Cheney gives a rat’s azz about! It’s the deal that gives most of Iraq’s wealth to U.S. – check that – multinational oil corporations. If that deal can’t be done, maybe even Cheney will give up on Iraq?
And the career arc of the P.M. is on the downslide:
Interviews with a broad range of Iraqi and Western officials paint a portrait of Maliki as an increasingly isolated and ineffectual figure, lacking in confidence and unable to trust people.
snip
Now, fellow Iraqi officials describe the prime minister as dangerously out of touch. They accuse him of insulating himself with a tightknit group of advisors from his party and of shutting others out of decision making. Rikabi, Maliki's political advisor, denied that allegation.
And the political impotence at the top has caused a devolution so that power flows at a subterranean level:
Already, the country is turning into power cliques beneath the radar of the government, warned the senior Iraqi politician who still works with Maliki.
"One of the dangers we have is out of this chaos, an oligarchy is evolving, little fiefdoms manipulating money, smuggling oil, getting into contracting procedures.
As far as the elected government goes the only other consensus build is the desire the throw the Americans out. From the AP:
Iraqi parliament demands say in any extension of U.S.-led forces
BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraqi legislators led by followers of a radical Shiite cleric passed a resolution Tuesday requiring the government to seek parliamentary permission for asking the United Nations to extend the mandate of U.S.-led forces in Iraq.
The measure was approved along party lines, with Sunnis joining the bloc loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr and another disaffected Shiite party to support it, and Shiite and Kurdish backers of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government in opposition.
The U.N. mandate for foreign forces in Iraq has been extended for a year through Dec. 31 at al-Maliki's request, so the parliamentary action was not expected to have any immediate effect. But it reflected growing disenchantment with the U.S.-backed government as Iraq's fractured parties jockey for power amid calls for U.S. forces to withdraw.
So there finally is a political consensus in Iraq to do something. There is political progress. The U.S. has united the insurgents and the terrorist, and the parliament wants to throw us out!
How’s that Korean model working Mista George Wanker Bush?
As the year moves along, let’s keep the focus of the Iraq debate on what the surge was suppose to accomplish – that it was intended to provide breathing space so that the Iraqis could work out their political differences. That has failed – as Darth would say – Big Time.
The good news is the RepublicSCUM presidential candidates have not figured this out. As Juan Cole wrote today:
On Iraq, the leading Republicans don't have a clue, and don't seem to realize that they are making themselves Hubert Humphrey electorally. (Ron Paul gets it on Iraq, but he is not a contender.)
The Karl Rove doctrine that when you dig yourself into a ditch, the best strategy is to dig deeper, has finally met the test of reality-based politics. It isn't going to be pretty.
These guys got away with these hawkish fantasies because they bamboozled the poor evangelicals into believing they would support public morality, and bamboozled poor conservatives into thinking they would uphold small government. Instead, they are hitching their wagons to a multi-trillion dollar quagmire abroad and don't give a rat's ass about evangelical values.
Links to the stories referenced:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
http://www.latimes.com/...
http://www.pr-inside.com/...
http://www.juancole.com/