It's Still A Failed Occupation

Under the radar, I think there's a congealing narrative, in the unbiased section of the print media at least, about how things are going in Iraq. Violence is becoming less spectacularly bad, but this has not translated into political success. And this isn't coming from anybody's opinion, but the Pentagon's own report.

Despite significant security gains in much of Iraq, nothing has changed within Iraq's political leadership to guarantee sustainable peace, a Pentagon report released Tuesday found.

The congressionally mandated quarterly report suggests that the drop in violence won't hold unless Iraq's central government passes key legislation, improves the way it manages its security forces and finds a way to reconcile the country's competing sects. It said none of those steps has been taken.

"Although security gains, local accommodation and progress against the flow of foreign fighters and lethal aid into Iraq have had a substantial effect, more needs to be done to foster national, 'top-down' reconciliation to sustain the gains," the report said.

If the Democrats hadn't given up on trying to change Iraq policy, they would be on every show highlighting this document. These Pentagon reports were the only concession from the original Iraq capitulation in May. If you're getting them, and they fit with what you've been saying for months, you might as well use it, no?

I mean, you have a report here saying that the US military is the "de-facto low-level government of the Iraq state." This is pulling us deeper into Iraq, not helping us get out. And the violence will continue until we raise the boot of occupation off of the necks of the Iraqis. That violence, by the way, is not falling as dramatically as it's being described in the media.

As long as basic services aren't being improved, as long as the local government is hopelessly corrupt, and as long as sectarianism still rules political decision-making, we're not going to see any difference in the fundamental dynamic of Iraq.

Three years after the massive US assault on Falluja, the city's mayor has accused Iraq's central government of starving the city of resources.

Mayor Sa'ad Awad says Shia officials still consider the former insurgent stronghold a haven for Sunni militants.

Support was particularly lacking for the city's 2,000-strong police force, he added, as it takes on a bigger role.

It may not be playing out in violent attacks (probably because of the blast walls), but there is still fierce combat for power between Shia and Sunni, which eventually will result, it's inevitable, in armed combat between well-stocked militias. And the Turkey-Kurdistan problem looks to be really teetering on disaster.

Juan Cole is suspicious about the timing of the recent Turkish raids on Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq, which came just as Condoleezza Rice was flying to Kirkuk to meet with Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani — a meeting that was angrily cancelled after Barzani learned about the raids:

....Look, it is absolutely impossible that Condi plans out a trip to Kirkuk and a meeting with Barzani with full knowledge that while she is there, Turkey will send 500 Turkish soldiers into northern Iraq to occupy the villages of Kaya Retch Binwak, Janarok and Gelly Resh. Or even that when she set out on her trip, she knew that Turkey was planning to bomb Iraqi Kurdistan on Sunday, killing 3, wounding 8, and displacing 300 Kurdish villagers...

It's hard to think this is about anything but Turkey being a malefactor, which is exactly what we don't need.

The media has a MAJOR incentive not to recognize anything about Iraq anymore. But this is a point where the nation is really being lost, and the Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for not calling attention to it.