Deja Vu in Iraq

It was 3 1/2 years ago when the top UN official in Iraq was killed in a bombing. Fortunately, the same didn't happen today to the Secretary-General, but essentially insurgents got a mortar within 50 meters of the Prime Minister and a major world leader in the Green Zone.

The other story out of Iraq that put me in the wayback machine was this one, a variant of which it seems like we see every time the US tries to get tough with al-Sadr and Shiite militias:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces have released a senior aide to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on the orders of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Maliki's office said on Wednesday.

Ahmed Shibani, who had been held for more than two years, is a senior aide to Sadr, a radical anti-American cleric who is also the leader of the Mehdi Army militia which Washington recently called the greatest threat to security in Iraq.

Shibani's release is likely to boost the standing of Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist who relies on Sadr for political support. The Sadrist movement holds a quarter of parliamentary seats in the ruling Shi'ite Alliance.

Maliki is extremely constrained by the Sadrist wing of his government, and Juan Cole says that "Although the press keeps saying that al-Maliki will get street credibility because of the release, I can't actually believe that getting one Sadrist out of jail, who had been held illegally by the US for over a year, would make much impact on attitudes." The point is that he has to go to the wall for his Shiite compatriots, which means that, despite how the Administration is spinning it, we're being forced to take sides in a civil war.

Meanwhile, we've been training troops for so long in Iraq you'd think that everyone left in the country has been deputized, but it turns out that a lot of those "troops" are nothing more than names on a list who draw a salary. About 4 times as many troops would have to be trained before even hoping for the Iraqis to control any measure of security. It's a fallacy.

Then there's the continuing Whack-a-Mole (again via Juan Cole), where Diyala Province has become the new Baghdad, with 33 prisoners broken out of jail and 30 others dying in the escapade. "Insurgents battled Iraqi and US reinforcements, set fire to the police station, courthouse and 20 police vehicles before making their escape." But Baghdad is relatively slightly safer!

As much as we hear that we have a great new strategy to secure Iraq, everything that's happening has happened before. And the exact same spin is being applied to it. To quote Rep. Murtha:

Asked yesterday on CNN about the Bush administration's predictions that pulling out of Iraq could mean chaos for the region, Congressman Jack Murtha said: “Why would I believe that?" He added: "Nothing they’ve predicted has turned out to be true.”

Which is why I'm so disappointed that the House is not moving more aggressively today, along with the Senate, to mandate a return of US troops from this region where they try the same things over and over again with predictable results. Whether it's using the purse strings or setting definable end dates, something must be done to stop this Groundhog Day of a war.