Hope In Iraq Loses By Three Falls, No Submissions

I agree with K-Drum, this is both game, set, and match:

For much of this year, the U.S. military strategy in Iraq has sought to reduce violence so that politicians could bring about national reconciliation, but several top Iraqi leaders say they have lost faith in that broad goal.

Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services.

"I don't think there is something called reconciliation, and there will be no reconciliation as such," said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd. "To me, it is a very inaccurate term. This is a struggle about power."

Humam Hamoudi, a prominent Shiite cleric and parliament member, said any future reconciliation would emerge naturally from an efficient, fair government, not through short-term political engineering among Sunnis and Shiites.

"Reconciliation should be a result and not a goal by itself," he said. "You should create the atmosphere for correct relationships, and not wave slogans that 'I want to reconcile with you.' "

But a fair and efficient government without a reconciliation between the warring factions will not be possible. It would be impossible to deliver basic services to the Old Confederacy from Washington in 1863, or in Lebanon in the 1980s or Guatemala or any of the war-torn countries experiencing Civil War. You can streamline the bureaucracy and fill ministerial posts all you want, if people are shooting at the garbagemen, they're not going to pick up the garbage. So this really is a call to fight it out in the street and let the spoils go to the victor. It's a declaration of civil war, which has been raging undeclared up until now.