I'm pissed.
I'm watching the news, reading blogs, checking out media reports, and all of them focus on one thing when it comes to Iraq.
The war.
The war is over. We won the military action a long time ago, and while insurgent attacks are great for headlines, and are deplorable for the casualties they cause, they are absolutely irrelevant.
The problem with Iraq is that the Iraqi government is not taking advantage of our troops being there to actually work on reconciliation and creating a working, permanent government to turn Iraq into a stable country.
More below the fold.
I realize there's a lot of strong opinions about the war. I was originally against it, and am still against the ideas that caused it to happen, as I'm sure many of you reading this are. But let's set those aside for a moment, and really look at the situation there.
The largest problem right now is infighting in Iraq at all levels. You see it in the Parliament and the Cabinet chambers. You see it in the streets. The men and women of our military are doing their job admirably...and it's all useless, because the Iraqi government can't get its act in order.
Our troops are over there trying to buy time for an Iraqi government that is wasting it. Disagree with the premise behind why they are there in the first place or not, but that's the reality on the ground. If we ever want a consensus to get our troops home in a timely fashion, pressure has to be put on the Iraqi government to get things done.
Part of this is at the personal level. Most Iraqi's don't identify themselves as Iraqi first. They identify themselves as Kurd, Arab, Sunni, Shi'a, etc., first. In order to truly get things working on a national level, Iraqis need to identify themselves as Iraqis first, and then move on to what else defines them. This problem percolates its way up to the highest levels of Iraqi government, where politicians are trying to make sure "their people" come out on top instead of doing what's best for Iraq.
Take a look at America, for example. Conservatives and Liberals, Christians and non-Christians, all of America's varied groups have different ideas of what would make a better America, and we debate long, hard, and vigorously about what makes America great, and how to make it better. But all these groups (outside of the fringe crazies) work to make America a better place for everyone, not just for themselves. This isn't happening in Iraq. Factions are attempting to make sure they come out on top, so that Iraq is better for them instead of being better for all Iraqis.
And frankly, when the government of Iraq can't escape this infighting, it's a wonder that anyone expects the people of Iraq themselves to escape it. These divisions in the hearts of the people there are the spaces that allow an insurgency to thrive. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other insurgent/terrorist groups play off of these fears and hatreds in order to create instability. And as long as people are willing to tolerate it for whatever reason, no army, no surge of any size, no troop levels are going to stop Iraqi leaders from being assassinated. No force, either Iraq's own or our troops, will be able to stop the attacks and the killing in the streets.
But what can we do?
For better or for worse, our government occupies the largest bully pulpit in Iraq right now. The failing of the current administration has been to attempt to guide the Iraqi government with wrist-slaps and tut-tutting, all the while vetoing or convincing their cronies in Congress to filibuster or vote again legislation that lets Iraq know that we refuse to be their security blanket forever.
We need to change that.
We need clear, legislated benchmarks for progress in the Iraqi government.
We need actual, legislated consequences for when these benchmarks are missed, culminating in the complete removal of troops and support for the Iraqi government.
We need the Iraqi government to sack up and start working for a greater Iraq instead of wasting time with infighting and political maneuvering and start doing something meaningful. We need the Iraqi government to fix serious problems like the pay differential between the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi National Police, so that people actually stay in the police force to do the security tasks they're assigned to do instead of leaving at a 60% clip.
Yes, the Bush Administration tossed us and Iraq a bunch of lemons. They've also got a sack of sugar and some ice there in the form of troops, misguided by this administration or not, trying to provide them with security so they can fix it and make some lemonade out of a deplorable situation.
The Iraqi government just needs to sack up and do it, and lead by example. Until they do that, there is no "winning" in Iraq, no matter how long our troops are kept there.