Top 10 Myths About Iraq

Fellow Wolverine Juan Cole has a must-read post up. The best writing challenges your expectations, and everybody reading this piece will be surprised with something that they find. And that's EVERYBODY. In the same post is:

4. Iraqis are grateful for the US presence and want US forces there to help them build their country. Opinion polls show that between 66% and 80% of Iraqis want the US out of Iraq on a short timetable. Already in the last parliament, some 120 parliamentarians out of 275 supported a resolution demanding a timetable for US withdrawal, and that sentiment will be much stronger in the newly elected parliament.

and

8. Iraq is already in a civil war, so it does not matter if the US simply withdraws precipitately, since the situation is as bad as it can get. No, it isn't. During the course of the guerrilla war, the daily number of dead has fluctuated, between about 20 and about 60. But in a real civil war, it could easily be 10 times that. Some estimates of the number of Afghans killed during their long set of civil wars put the number at 2.5 million, along with 5 million displaced abroad and more millions displaced internally. Iraq is Malibu Beach compared to Afghanistan in its darkest hours. The US has a responsibility to get out of Iraq responsibly and to not allow it to fall into that kind of genocidal civil conflict.

then closes with something you'd never hear a politician say, because it's true but difficult:

Iraq's situation is extremely complex. It is not a black and white poster for an American political party. Good things and bad things are happening there. The American public cannot help make good policy, however, unless the myths are first dispelled.

The sloganeers, on both sides, need to internalize this, and instead of saying "They're not reporting the GOOD NEWS from Iraq" or "Those insurgents are freedom fighters," they need to constructively figure out the best course of action from a series of not-so-attractive options. The internecine warfare in this country, if unchecked, will take all of these options out of our hands, as Iraq will set its own dangerous course.