News So Good It Had To Wait 'Til Saturday

The Times front-pages this:

Big Gains for Iraq Security, but Questions Linger
By STEPHEN FARRELL and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

BAGHDAD — What’s going right? And can it last?

Violence in all of Iraq is the lowest since March 2004. The two largest cities, Baghdad and Basra, are calmer than they have been for years. The third largest, Mosul, is in the midst of a major security operation. On Thursday, Iraqi forces swept unopposed through the southern city of Amara, which has been controlled by Shiite militias. There is a sense that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government has more political traction than any of its predecessors.

Consider the latest caricatures of Mr. Maliki put up on posters by the followers of Moktada al-Sadr, the fiery cleric who commands deep loyalty among poor Shiites. They show the prime minister’s face split in two — half his own, half Saddam Hussein’s. The comparison is, of course, intended as a searing criticism. But only three months ago the same Sadr City pamphleteers were lampooning Mr. Maliki as half-man, half-parrot, merely echoing the words of his more powerful Shiite and American backers. It is a notable swing from mocking an opponent perceived to be weak to denouncing one feared to be strong.

For Hatem al-Bachary, a Basra businessman, the turnabout has been “a miracle,” the first tentative signs of a normal life.

“I don’t think the militias have disappeared, and maybe there are sleeper cells which will try to revive themselves again,” he said. “But the first time they try to come back they will have to show themselves, and the government, army and police are doing very well.”

While the increase in American troops and their support behind the scenes in the recent operations has helped tamp down the violence, there are signs that both the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi government are making strides. There are simply more Iraqi troops for the government to deploy, partly because fewer are needed to fight the Sunni insurgents, who have defected to the Sunni Awakening movement. They are paid to keep the peace.

Mr. Maliki’s moves against Shiite militias have built some trust with wary Sunnis, offering the potential for political reconciliation. High oil prices are filling Iraqi government coffers. But even these successes contain the seeds of vulnerability. The government victories in Basra, Sadr City and Amara were essentially negotiated, so the militias are lying low but undefeated and seething with resentment. Mr. Maliki may be raising expectations among Sunnis that he cannot fulfill, and the Sunni Awakening forces in many cases are loyal to their American paymasters, not the Shiite government. Restive Iraqis want to see the government spend money to improve services. Attacks like the bombing that killed 63 people in Baghdad’s Huriya neighborhood on Tuesday showed that opponents can continue to inflict carnage.

Reporter Stephen Farrell has a related story here.

MORE:  Obama re-emphasized his commitment to defeat at the Philadelphia debate in April (transcript).  Here is US News & World Report:

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama locked themselves into rigid positions on Iraq during a debate in Philadelphia Wednesday night.

Both said they would begin withdrawals of U.S. troops soon after taking office and would move quickly to end the war. They didn't leave themselves much room to change their minds even if the military situation were altered or U.S. commanders gave a different recommendation. This could make it more difficult for each of them to be flexible during the general-election campaign and, more important, as commander in chief.

SUNDAY UPDATE:  In an odd mix of defensiveness and triumphalism Frank Rich defends Obama's positioning on Iraq:

Now That We’ve ‘Won,’ Let’s Come Home

By FRANK RICH

THE Iraq war’s defenders like to bash the press for pushing the bad news and ignoring the good. Maybe they’ll be happy to hear that the bad news doesn’t rate anymore. When a bomb killed at least 51 Iraqis at a Baghdad market on Tuesday, ending an extended run of relative calm, only one of the three network newscasts (NBC’s) even bothered to mention it.

The only problem is that no news from Iraq isn’t good news — it’s no news. The night of the Baghdad bombing the CBS war correspondent Lara Logan appeared as Jon Stewart’s guest on “The Daily Show” to lament the vanishing television coverage and the even steeper falloff in viewer interest. “Tell me the last time you saw the body of a dead American soldier,” she said. After pointing out that more soldiers died in Afghanistan than Iraq last month, she asked, “Who’s paying attention to that?”

Her question was rhetorical, but there is an answer: Virtually no one. If you follow the nation’s op-ed pages and the presidential campaign, Iraq seems as contentious an issue as Vietnam was in 1968. But in the country itself, Cindy vs. Michelle, not Shiites vs. Sunnis, is the hotter battle. This isn’t the press’s fault, and it isn’t the public’s fault. It’s merely the way things are.

In America, the war has been a settled issue since early 2007. No matter what has happened in Iraq since then, no matter what anyone on any side of the Iraq debate has had to say about it, polls have consistently found that a majority of Americans judge the war a mistake and want out. For that majority, the war is over except for finalizing the withdrawal details. They’ve moved on without waiting for the results of Election Day 2008 or sampling the latest hectoring ad from moveon.org.

Hmm.  I first read this in the Dead Tree edition - in the on-line version, Mr. Rich provides a link to the PollingReport.com and draws the same conclusion I came to when I went fishing there for evidence to refute and confound him - opinions aren't changing on the outlook in Iraq, even as the facts on the ground are changing.

As I said, Mr. Rich seems to have mixed feelings about having the support of the American people regardless of whether he has the support of the facts.  After all, plenty of libs talk about public opinion polls showing Americans believed that Saddam was behind the 9/11 plot; those polls are not normally cited as evidence of the good judgment of the great unwashed, but rather as evidence of their susceptibility to media manipulation and comfortable narratives.

Mr. Rich presses on with his defense of Obama:

The G.O.P.’s badgering of Mr. Obama about the war is also backfiring. In sync with Mr. McCain, the Republican National Committee unveiled an online clock  — “Track How Long Since Obama Was in Iraq!”  — only to have Mr. Obama call the bluff by announcing that he will go to both Afghanistan and Iraq before the election. Unless he takes along his own Lieberman-like Jiminy Cricket to whisper factual corrections into his ear, this trip is likely to enhance his stature as a potential commander in chief.

It might indeed increase his stature.  It might present Obama with an opportunity to back-flip away from his commitment to withdraw.  It might do a lot of things.  Time (He boldly predicted) will tell.

The other whiny line of G.O.P.-McCain attack is to demand incessantly that Mr. Obama stop refusing to recognize the decline in violence in Iraq, stop calling for a hasty troop withdrawal and stop ignoring commanders on the ground in assessing his exit strategy. Here, too, Mr. Obama is calling their bluff, though not nearly as loudly as he will, I suspect, in the debates.

The fact is that Mr. Obama frequently recognizes “the reduction of violence in Iraq” (his words) and has said he is “encouraged” by it. He has never said that he would refuse to consult with commanders on the ground, and he has never called for a precipitous withdrawal. His mantra on Iraq, to the point of tedium, has always been that “we must be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in.” His roughly 16-month timetable isn’t hasty and isn’t “retreat.” As The Economist, a supporter of the war, recently put it, a safer Iraq does not necessarily validate Mr. McCain’s “insistence on America staying indefinitely” and might make Mr. Obama’s 16-month framework “more feasible.”

As to the assertion that "He has never said that he would refuse to consult with commanders on the ground", the quotes from the Philadelphia debate make clear that Obama has claimed that he will set the mission and will not be consulting with his generals as to whether a prompt withdrawal is appropriate.  Where he is open to consultation is in achieving those withdrawals safely, but that is hardly the same thing (although Obama may try to respin it to appear to be).

Here is what the Obama website says about the Surge:

The Surge: The goal of the surge was to create space for Iraq's political leaders to reach an agreement to end Iraq's civil war. At great cost, our troops have helped reduce violence in some areas of Iraq, but even those reductions do not get us below the unsustainable levels of violence of mid-2006. Moreover, Iraq's political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war.

Time to update that a bit?  Let's revisit the Times lead:

Violence in all of Iraq is the lowest since March 2004.

And a bit further down:

Mr. Maliki’s moves against Shiite militias have built some trust with wary Sunnis, offering the potential for political reconciliation.

And the Obama website is still calling it a civil war.  Sooo 2006.  But where are we now?

OK, back to Frank Rich:

After all, the point of the surge, as laid out by Mr. Bush, was to buy time for political reconciliation among the Iraqis. The results have been at best spotty, and even the crucial de-Baathification law celebrated by Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain in January remains inoperative. Mr. Obama’s timetable is at least an effort to use any remaining American leverage to concentrate the Iraqi leaders’ thinking. Mr. McCain offers only the status quo: a blank check holding America hostage to fate and ceding the president’s civilian authority over war policy to Gen. David Petraeus and his successors.

As the original Times article noted, one aspect of the surge was that it bought time for the training of Iraqi security forces.  It may be that a few more years of a "blank check" will be the critical time that the Iraqis need for that training to be expanded and/or completed, and it certainly may be that our generals think so.  What woukd Barack do then?

Should voters tune in, they’ll also discover that the McCain policy is nonsensical on its face. If “we are winning” and the surge is a “success,” then what is the rationale for keeping American forces bogged down there while the Taliban regroups ominously in Afghanistan? Why, if this is victory, does Mr. McCain keep threatening that “chaos and genocide” will follow our departure? And why should we take the word of a prophet who failed to anticipate the chaos and ethnic cleansing that would greet our occupation?

"Nonsensical"?  Now Mr. Rich is just raving.  Crime has dropped in New York City - should we disband the NYPD, or reduce it by two thirds?  "We are winning" in Iraq doesn't mean we have won; my goodness, would General Rich have advised General Eisenhower that, having liberated Paris from the Nazis it was time to bring the troops home?

Mr. Rich appears comfortable having won the battle of the narratives, but I hope he is concerned that the battle of reality is not over.

Comments

[kim]

We admire Maliki, but in Sistani we trust.
=========================

[clarice]

If...If..Maybe Maliki will get piles at a critical moment..maybe the earth will stand still in its tracks..

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

---
Obama re-emphasized his commitment to defeat
---

My guess is that Republicans can't define 'defeat' any better than they can define 'victory'.

[MikeS]

It seems that the Iraqi Military is willing to fight the Shia militias, and it seems that the populace will side with the government. If that's true, then the internal conflict in Iraq (the insurgency and the civil war) has been decided in the government's favor.

[kim]

Where's the nuance, eightnine? Victory is not such an easy concept to define as defeat.
=============================

[royf]

My guess is that Republicans can't define 'defeat' any better than they can define 'victory'.

 

Yeah right like your interested in any Republican definition. President Bush has stated his goals for Iraq many times, They just don't include surrender.
 

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

---
Victory is not such an easy concept to define as defeat.
---

If Iraq continues to pursue a cozy relationship with Ahmadinejad, is that victory, or defeat?

[carl]

Victory means you aint gonna get your Last Chopper out of Saigon/Bahgdad pics '89.

Disappointing, I know, but you will learn to live with it; just like all the lefties who couldn't conceive of victory in the Cold War dealt with it--by pretending later that you were always with the program.

[MikeS]

My definition of victory was when the very first bombs fell on one of Saddam's palaces. Since that moment the outcome has been inevitable.

There are those, the insurgents, the al Qaeda terrorists, and the Democrats, who have hoped they could get the U.S. to withdraw before Iraq was stabilized (by the way that is my definition of defeat), but that was never really close to happening.

[kim]

Call the higher pay grade, eightnine. Sistani refused to meet with Ahmadi-Nejad and Maliki fought his minions into defeat shortly after his visit.
===========================

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

Looks to me like they just had dinner and a movie and are headed back to the apartment.

link

[kim]

The cameraman missed the kiss of death.
========================

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

So I take it that similar pictures taken during the Obama administration will be no cause for concern.

[kim]

Clarice, Steve McIntyre, at climateaudit.org has three 'Fortress' posts about the intransigence of reviewers for the IPCC's AR4 to requests under the Freedom of Information acts for documents relating to the echo-chambered review of their climatologists. Someone has suggested the scandal as a good theme for an American Thinker article. Pay particular attention to the remarks of an Oriz Johnson at comment #42 on the 'Confidential Agent Amman' thread. I think you'll be amused.

The carbon paradigm is cracking up. This scandal lays some of the blame at the feet of the IPCC, and shows how terrible public policy comes from biased science.
==============================

[kim]

eightnine, why should two Muslims hugging each other be a cause for concern?
===================

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

---
why should two Muslims hugging each other be a cause for concern?
---

So you're saying it won't be an issue if it happens in 2009-2012?

[carl]

"Obama/'08
Our Last Best Hope for Defeat!"

Not a winning campaign slogan.

[kim]

So you're saying Obama is a Muslim?
======================

[MikeS]

Obama/08
"Change it's hard to keep up with!"

[kim]

Heh, clarice, you are being touted as an 'always carbolic enemy of bureaucratic foibles' over there.
=============================

[kim]

"Change it's not hard to change back from". No, no we couldn't.
=====================

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

---
So you're saying Obama is a Muslim?
---

Is this somehow implying that McCain has lost his bearings?

[kim]

Well, I'd infer you have.
==============

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

And McCain's campaigning in Canada would seem to indicate some confusion on his part.

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

Is he planning an invasion of Canada?

I guess he thinks they were involved with 9/11 or something; plus getting control of the oil sands will offset the cost of the invasion.

[kim]

Marbles, maybe?
==========

[Cecil Turner]

The government victories in Basra, Sadr City and Amara were essentially negotiated, so the militias are lying low but undefeated and seething with resentment.

What a crock. Remember when the MSM reporters were falling all over themselves to portray the security crackdowns as failures? And the hopeful counterpoint by milbloggers:

The Mahdi Army has also taken high casualties since the fighting began on March 25. According to an unofficial tally of the open source reporting from the US and Iraqi media and Multinational Forces Iraq, 571 Mahdi Army fighters have been killed, 881 have been wounded, 490 have been captured, and 30 have surrendered over the course of seven days of fighting.

Now that there's no way to construe the successful operations as defeats, the fellow travelers are pretending it wasn't an actual victory.

Contrast those headlines with the more recent ones, like: Al-Mahdi Army militias routed without a shot fired. "Lying low" . . . "undefeated" . . . hah!

[PeterUK]

The lofty criticism of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki would be better if it did not come from a former Community Organiser and a former First Dudess,neither of whom have ever managed a task equal to Iraq.

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

---
neither of whom have ever managed a task equal to Iraq.
---

So true; but then again, neither has Bush or McCain.

[PeterUK]

"If Iraq continues to pursue a cozy relationship with Ahmadinejad, is that victory, or defeat?"

Neither,it is diplomacy. Adults don't do the girl's school,pouty,stampy foot,"I'm never going to talk to you again" routine with armed neighbours.

[Elliott]

kim,

Maybe mutatis mutandis?

Verba solum (merely words) has some appeal.

[PeterUK]

"So true; but then again, neither has Bush or McCain."

Amazing! There's me thinking George Bush was president of the USA,Commander in Chief of the army fighting in Iraq. Were you thinking of mulberry bush eight nine?

[Rick Ballard]

"Lying low" . . . "undefeated"

Cecil,

This is a combination of the Black Knight and Dead Parrot sketches as presented by the NYT. It should be filed next to "dread Afghan winter", "no Iraqi/AQ collusion (due to sectarian differences)" and the "dragons tooth" meme that killing one terrorist produces a hundred more.

They really do get into a richer, deeper form of stupid, don't they?

[bgates]

Big Gains For Obama in Polls, But Questions Linger
It's difficult to imagine NYT committing apostasy like that, isn't it?
The government victories in Basra, Sadr City and Amara were essentially negotiated
Clearly they're seeking a political solution to what is essentially a military problem. Any editorialist can see that.
Mr. Maliki may be raising expectations among Sunnis that he cannot fulfill
Such as?
the Sunni Awakening forces in many cases are loyal to their American paymasters
Leaving aside the fact that the NYT reporters know no such thing, and that it's a typically baseless slur for them to imply people fighting alongside Americans for peace in their own neighborhoods are in it for the money, the nature of the claim is striking: The armed men in the Sunni triangle are too loyal to America!

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

---
There's me thinking George Bush
---

Bush's leadership is best characterized by the phrase 'stercus accidit' and doesn't merit the term 'management'.

[PeterUK]

"Bush's leadership is best characterized by the phrase 'stercus accidit' and doesn't merit the term 'management'."

Nobody has blown up your office have they eightnine,there is no jihadi holding a knife to your throat? You are still eating and driving a vehicle,you little eco-vandal you.

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

---
Nobody has blown up your office
---

My office mates are in BDU's, so not likely.

[Buford Gooch]

Why do y'all feed the trolls? If everyone would just ignore the juvenile rantings of this eightnine person, he/she would stomp his/her little feet in a snit and not come back.

[Cecil Turner]

This is a combination of the Black Knight and Dead Parrot sketches . . .

Heh. Good analogy.

[bgates]

McCain's campaigning in Canada would seem to indicate some confusion on his part.

[Canadian consulate staffer] DeMora wrote [Canadian Ambassador] Wilson that in the Chicago meeting, Goolsbee "candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign" but reassured Rioux that Obama's NAFTA-bashing "should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans." Three weeks later, Canada's CTV News reported that a "senior member" of Obama's campaign had phoned Wilson personally to advise him to "not be worried about what Obama says about NAFTA." The Obama campaign denied that story, which (if you believe DeMora's account) was only slightly off the mark, and declined to elaborate.

====================================

But now, with much official Canadian hand-wringing under the bridge, Obama has in effect confirmed that the leaks were bang-on: He didn't really mean his threat to rip up the North American Free Trade Agreement. It was, he now says, part of the ordinary old cut-and-thrust of politics. "Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets over-heated and amplified," a contrite Obama tells Fortune.

Ah well. It's okay then. Lie away.

[PeterUK]

"My office mates are in BDU's, so not likely."

You must stand out in your burqa then.

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

---
You must stand out in your burqa then.
---

Burqas are more of a conservative theocratic thing; lots of anti-evolutionists in burkas.

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

We're more the satanic force of secular humanism, crippling society with our intolerant 'live and let live' philosophy, while you guys apparently believe that God punishes gay marriage in California by flooding the midwest or raising the marginal rates on capital gains; personally I just can't keep the whole 'hierarchy of retribution' thing straight.

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

Burqas are more of a conservative theocratic thing; lots of anti-evolutionists in burkas.
---
Which, by the way, is why our new messiah will not allow them to appear in his campaign photos.

[Jane]

I just finished reading Bill Sammon's "the Evangelical President" which chronicles the middle years of this President's presidency. I found a "white house official's" impression of Obama spot-on over a year ago. He said Obama was smart and charismatic but his problem is that he's intellectually lazy.

In the Audacity of Hope Obama railed against government programs as "unsuccessful". Six days after the publication of the book Tim Russert asked him to specify which programs he was referring to, and he couldn't come up with one. Same with explaining the differences in his health care plan, and his remark about 10,000 people being killed in Kansas by a tornedo.

The official thought that Obama would rely on his charm rather than his intellect and that would not carry the day.

The official said: "He's not done the hard work to do the job, and he doesn't have enough time left to do it."

I'm betting it was Rove, because it's on the mark.

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

We're more the satanic force of secular humanism, crippling society with our intolerant 'live and let live' philosophy, while you guys apparently believe that God punishes gay marriage in California by flooding the midwest or raising the marginal rates on capital gains; personally I just can't keep the whole 'hierarchy of retribution' thing straight.
---
Oh, damn, did I just open the door to discussion about our new messiahs decades in that hatemonger Wright's pews?

Crap.

I should have quit while I was ahead.

[Porchlight]

You were never ahead. But you can still quit!

[eightnine2718281828mu5]

While in 2000 McCain identified agents of intolerance in his own party, but recanted when he decided he really really really needed the votes of the intolerant.

[HoosierHoops]

While in 2000 McCain identified agents of intolerance in his own party, but recanted when he decided he really really really needed the votes of the intolerant.

Posted by: eightnine2718281828mu5

Step away from the crack pipe....
I'm here to help you 89..it's ok dude..
Hoopster: Somebody call 911!
It's going to be ok 89 really it is..

[glasater]

89--Isn't it Soros' thinking that the "clingers" and regular folks should not worry their little heads about taxes?