[E]ven the dumbest of animals will learn if you keep poking it with a electric prod. And so it may be with the Bush administration. Perhaps the US finally has the correct strategy for creating a sustainable Iraqi state, and in the process, producing a situation where they can withdraw without leaving a bloodbath in their wake.
Although some political progress has been made and security has vastly improved in Iraq, the Iraq Civil war prosecuted by the insurgency (in all its forms) has caused an appalling numbers of deaths - as such wars tend to do. However, the US appears to have learnt how to fight an insurgency, and the Iraqis have also stepped back from the brink. Incidentally, much of the improvement in Iraq occurred after the cause of much of the troubles in Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld, resigned. He is suspected to have resigned because he was opposed to the surge strategy and was calling for a reduction in troop numbers. A clear example of two wrongs not making a right.
Today, there may be signs that the surge strategy may well continue to have beneficial effects, including the troop withdrawals from Iraq that were suggested some months ago. Hat tip: Instapundit.
Iraq’s army and police could be ready to take over security in all 18 provinces by the end of this year as the U.S. military moves toward a less prominent role in the country, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
“We look at it every month. We make recommendations. I think that if we continue along the path we’re on now, we’ll be able to do that by the end of 2008,” Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the No. 2 commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said when asked when Iraqi forces could take the lead in all provinces.
[…]
The ability of Iraqi forces to take the lead in security operations is vital to President George W. Bush’s plan to withdraw 20,000 U.S. troops by the middle of this year.
[…]
“All the evidence available to me now suggests we will be able to complete the drawdown,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters separately.
Since the original decision to invade Iraq cannot be recalled, though many trapped in 2003 act as though it can, the only progressive position is to wish for the least bad option for Iraqi democrats. Amazingly, Bush appears to have created that option out of a maelstrom of violence, when many progressives wished for failure and their unlikely comrade Rumsfeld had already prepared for it.
“Any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty has a friend and ally in me.” (Mitt Romney, US presidential hopeful)
“The hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me and every human being that exists on this planet.” (John Edwards, US presidential hopeful)
“I have had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought. And that’s all one can expect or hope for.” (Hillary Clinton, US presidential hopeful)
“My Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify … a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy.” (Barack Obama, US presidential hopeful)
“The Bible was not written to be amended. The Constitution was,” (Mike Huckabee, US presidential hopeful speaking of making gay marriage and abortion constitutionally impossible)
The more astute of you will have noted a pattern there.
I don’t think incredibly highly of Neil Clark. His crowning achievement was calling for the murder of Iraqi civilians to spite “pro-war bloggers”, but the rest of his output is similarly convoluted. His specialty is apologies for Serbian and Bosnian Serb war criminals and war crimes, and on Monday, CiF published a Clark article titled “It’s time to end Serb-bashing“. You’d think that Clark would then discuss how he thinks that Serbia has been misrepresented and why that’s incorrect. Not so. It’s vintage Neil Clark, dealing with only war and politics, complete with systematic manipulation and obsfucation of facts–assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that he had the facts to begin with–portioning of blame out to everybody but the aggressor, championing international law when it suits his purposes (ie that the UN didn’t authorise the NATO war against Yugoslavia in 1999), disregarding it when it doesn’t (ie that the UN created ICTY is a mere kangaroo court), and so on and so forth. What I’ve read of the comments are even worse, with one commentator insanely contending that Dubrovnik’s old town was never even shelled. The net effect is hardly going to stop “Serb-bashing”.
By way of contrast, compare Clark’s article to a recent posting by Marko Attila Hoare. In an article about the demolition of Serbia’s oldest theatre, Hoare writes that there “are many things about Serbia to attract the tourist: good-looking inhabitants who are generally kind and helpful toward foreign visitors; streets that are safe to walk in at night; lovely lush, green, rolling countryside; great food; low prices; and, of course, the legendary medieval monasteries.” This single sentence, to my mind, does infinitely more to “end Serb-bashing” than an entire ream of Neil Clark articles about the former Yugoslavia.
