Alright the President is still calling for staying the course, but what does that mean exactly?
Below I will give you a better picture of what is going on in Iraq since the media is useless and will point out that the administration may be moving to a better more pragmatic strategy.
More below the fold:
Guardian
First, if the British are to be trusted it looks like our strategy has moved from an ideological one to a pragmatic one, which is a good thing.
Diplomats in the Foreign Office are working frantically in private on what they refer to as the "exit ticket" from Iraq.
In contrast to the official line that British forces will remain until the job is done, the Foreign Office wants to engineer a set of circumstances in which both Britain and the US can begin to reduce troops next year. But the speed with which unrest and violence is growing is making this harder.
Ambitions for Iraq are being drastically scaled down in private. A Foreign Office source said the goal of the US administration to turn Iraq into a beacon of democracy in the Middle East had long ago been shelved. "We will settle for leaving behind an Iraqi democracy that is creaking along," the source said.
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Before the war, Washington saw Iraq not only as a likely beacon for democracy but also as potentially a stable source of oil and a well-positioned strategic base. Reflecting lowered expectations, the source said the priority for withdrawal was merely that "George Bush is not seen to have failed. He will have to have at least set Iraq on the road to democracy". Iraqis are scheduled to vote on October 13 on a new constitution and in December in a general election: allowing Mr Bush to claim he had put down democratic roots.
The second priority is also an American one. "The US does not want a legacy of Iran having extended its influence over the Middle East," the source said. The fear is of an Iran that has the capability in a few years of acquiring a bomb, continues to have a say in Lebanon through Hizbullah, maintains close ties to Shia-controlled southern Iraq and has the potential to wreak havoc there and in Saudia Arabia.
The third is that Iraqi forces should be able to be responsible for law and order.
The mood in the Ministry of Defence is not dissimilar to that in the Foreign Office, although Downing Street still tends towards the bland briefings, tinged with optimism. Relations between Jack Straw, who shared some reservations about the war, and Tony Blair can at times be tetchy. One Foreign Office source said that it was sometimes embarrassing to be in the room with them. Mr Straw has said repeatedly that Britain will not join any war against Iran, aware that neither the cabinet nor the Labour party would accept it. Mr Blair offers no such assurances.
The "drawdown" of troops would be done in stages, and the US wants to keep four air bases in Iraq. But this is not part of some strategic plan for mastery of the Middle East. The Foreign Office plays it down, saying the bases are less important than those in Gulf states such as Qatar and Bahrain. Like its other ambitions for Iraq, the US has scaled down this plan and Britain is happily backing it, in the hope of an early exit.
If this is indeed the current strategy I say its about time. In my view, this means that we should be out of Iraq (with the exception of the four bases) by the end of 07 if things go well.
The only concern is if we can really pull it off - here is what is going on in Iraq.
yahoo
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The country's most powerful Shiite cleric endorsed the draft constitution Thursday, rejecting opposition voiced by two popular leaders of Iraq's majority sect and underlining a rift also on display in anti-British violence in the southern city of Basra.
Two officials in the Shiite Muslim hierarchy in Najaf said Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called senior aides together and told them to promote a "yes" vote among the faithful during the Oct. 15 national referendum on the constitution.
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Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs, who lost power and privilege with the fall of Saddam Hussein in the U.S.-led invasion, are deeply opposed to the constitution. They form the bulk of the country's violent insurgency and have stepped up attacks on Shiites in advance of the vote.
In Amman, Jordan, about 150 Iraqi Sunni clerics and tribal leaders called for the rejection of the constituion, warning the charter would lead to the fragmentation of Iraq. The local leaders from Iraq's insurgency-torn Anbar province, the country's Sunni heartland, met for a a three-day conference in the Jordanian capital for security reasons.
We urge all the Iraqi people to go to the polls and say no to the constitution," Sheik Abdul-Latif Himayem, a prominent cleric from the Anbar capital, Ramadi, told The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister questioned whether the Bush administration's efforts in Iraq will yield a stable, unified nation.
Prince Saud al-Faisal told the AP in a Washington interview that he hopes the proposed Iraqi constitution and coming elections will unify the country, but indicated he was worried that divisions among Kurds, Shiites and Sunni factions are too great.
"We have not seen a move inside Iraq that would satisfy us that the national unity of Iraq, and therefore the territorial unity of Iraq, will be assured," Saud said.
Guardian
Hundreds of policemen and civilians marched in Basra yesterday denouncing "British aggression" in the raid to free the two undercover soldiers arrested by Iraqi police on Monday.
The protesters, some carrying handguns and AK-47s, chanted "No to occupation" and waved banners calling for the two men be tried as terrorists. Soldiers and armed police watched the march but did not intervene.
Senior aides to Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi militia were at the heart of Monday's events, hit back at what they said were "distortions and nonsense" designed to discredit the firebrand cleric. "What is all this talk of infiltration of the police and destabilisation of Basra by supporters of Moqtada?" asked Abbas al-Rubaei, a spokesman for Mr Sadr in Sadr city in eastern Baghdad.
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He said a few days earlier thousands of Mahdi members had provided security for a huge Shia pilgrimage to the holy city of Kerbala. "Was that reported?" he asked.
The Basra riots have returned Mr Sadr and his legion of followers across southern Iraq to the spotlight. Exact numbers for his Mahdi militia are not known - estimates vary from 10,000 to 50,000 - but he enjoys support in Sadr city as well as the southern cities of Nasriya, Kerbala, Kufa, Diwaniyah, and Basra. He has also been cultivating Shia support in the northern cities of Kirkuk and Tal Affar.
In Basra, the Mahdi army vies for influence with the Badr brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and Hizbullah in Iraq, a small marshland-based group.
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Since the Najaf uprising, Mr Sadr has gradually moved towards mainstream politics, encouraged by Ahmad Chalabi, the deputy prime minister and leader of the Iraqi National Congress. Mr Sadr may want the US troops out of the country and continues to justify the resistance, but he has also advised against his supporters against provoking coalition forces.
"We are waiting to see the outcome of the political process," Mr Rubaei said yesterday.
Well how is the political process going?
CSMonitor
BAGHDAD - The Transitional National Assembly was to be a starting point for Iraq's fledgling democracy, fostering political debate and consensus building.
But in the past nine months since the parliament was elected, decisionmaking has largely taken place not on the assembly floor but behind closed doors, say lawmakers.
The country's most vital decisions - naming a president, picking ministers, and writing the draft constitution - were taken out their hands and given to only a few powerful leaders, say several members from different parties who were interviewed by the Monitor.
Assembly members say that more often than not they are told to go along with what party leaders want, whether they like it or not. This, coupled with the fact that many members rarely attend meetings - some worry about the threat of assassination - has largely neutralized the country's legislative body of any real power.
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"I don't think it's a crisis but if it operates the way it has, it probably means if an Iraqi political system does take hold, you will see a government by back-room deal," says Nathan Brown, a constitutional expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Mr. Brown says such a system won't be a disaster "as long as it's consensual ... [but] if the party leaders treat the parliament as they do their own party, with indifference, and expect them to just go along," then there will be problems.
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Hanan al-Fatlawi, a member of the majority Shiite list, says sometimes decisions made by the assembly's committees never reach the assembly floor for consideration. "The decisions made by the committees of the national assembly, they change it or hide it. Even the way they explain [a proposed] law to us, it is different every time," she says.
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Empowering the assembly rank and file would require a structural change in the way the members are elected, analysts say, but also a change in the political culture that is still strongly tribal, relying on patronage networks to determine who gets on the lists of candidates.
All that is difficult when constant violence keeps members from revealing their names, much less building ties to voters who would hold them accountable.
Being a national assembly member carries prestige but it also carries the threat of assassination by insurgents and a dangerous journey to the fortresslike Green Zone, the only place safe enough to hold the meetings.
Two weeks ago the assembly failed to open a meeting because they couldn't reach quorum. In frustration, deputy assembly speaker Hussein al-Shahristani issued a stinging rebuke to the absent.
"Let the nation see what is happening in the national assembly .... we will register those that aren't here," he said after starting the meeting late then delaying it another half an hour in the hopes more members would show up.
In the end, about 70 members were present, about half of the number needed for quorum and far from the full membership of 275 people.
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Ms. Shukur says most list leaders don't meet with their members and rarely attend assembly meetings. Instead, a representative of the leader usually gathers members and tells them how to vote. "Even if we don't want it, we have to vote with the list," she says.
All of this has left many Iraqis feeling excluded from a process that was meant to make them, and especially the Sunni minority, feel they had a stake in their own governance. "I feel like this constitution and the whole process is not for the sake of the people. Iran has a big influence within the constitution, [the leaders] are serving their interests these days," says Husham Hezawi, a Sunni.
"In the next election, people will not vote for this government," says Hayder Abbas, a Shiite who owns a construction and supply company. "The new government hasn't done anything for the people."
Hopefully, the iraqi's will not reject the constitution and hopefully we can get this ship pointed in the right direction, but the fact is this country is a long way from getting their act together and we need to be cheering them on from right here at home.
If we were to stay in this country to build a "model democracy" it would cost way too much in lives and resources. Thank God sanity seems to have set in within the White House.