Repeat: There is no military solution, but there is spin

[ProSense]

As Sen. Casey said in the Dems' radio address:

...more than 170,000 brave young Americans will spend their holiday in Iraq. They will face the chaos of another country’s civil war, just as they do every day. They will face hatred they did not create and sectarian violence they cannot possibly resolve.

Why can't the troops come home?

Iraqis Wasting An Opportunity, U.S. Officers Say

With Attacks Ebbing, Government Is Urged to Reach Out to Opponents

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 15, 2007; Page A01

CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq -- Senior military commanders here now portray the intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias.

In more than a dozen interviews, U.S. military officials expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government's failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. A window of opportunity has opened for the government to reach out to its former foes, said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of day-to-day U.S. military operations in Iraq, but "it's unclear how long that window is going to be open."

The lack of political progress calls into question the core rationale behind the troop buildup President Bush announced in January, which was premised on the notion that improved security would create space for Iraqis to arrive at new power-sharing arrangements. And what if there is no such breakthrough by next summer? "If that doesn't happen," Odierno said, "we're going to have to review our strategy."

Brig. Gen. John F. Campbell, deputy commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, complained last week that Iraqi politicians appear out of touch with everyday citizens. "The ministers, they don't get out," he said. "They don't know what the hell is going on on the ground." Campbell noted approvingly that Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, the top Iraqi commander in the Baghdad security offensive, lately has begun escorting cabinet officials involved in health, housing, oil and other issues out of the Green Zone to show them, as Campbell put it, "Hey, I got the security, bring in the (expletive) essential services."

Indeed, some U.S. Army officers now talk more sympathetically about former insurgents than they do about their ostensible allies in the Shiite-led central government. "It is painful, very painful," dealing with the obstructionism of Iraqi officials, said Army Lt. Col. Mark Fetter. As for the Sunni fighters who for years bombed and shot U.S. soldiers and now want to join the police, Fetter shrugged. "They have got to eat," he said over lunch in the 1st Cavalry Division's mess hall here. "There are so many we've detained and interrogated, they did what they did for money."

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The Repubs are spinning progress in Iraq despite the fact that there is no political solution, Bush's foreign policy is dependent on luck and ifs, and the U.S. reconstruction efforts are not improving the delivery of even basic services to most Iraqis.

The Kurds are continuing to ignore Baghdad and Bush:

Iraqi Kurds flex muscles over black gold reserves

by Michel Moutot
Sun Nov 18

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) - Despite a veto from Baghdad, Iraqi Kurds have signed contracts with foreign firms to exploit their huge oil reserves which they vow will benefit the whole country.

Strengthened by the autonomy enshrined in the Iraqi constitution, the Iraqi Kurdish authority launched a regional oil policy in August, signing deals with overseas companies, to first achieve self-sufficiency and later exportation.

The authority has signed 20 contracts during the last three months and shows no sign of changing course, despite threats from the federal government to blacklist companies trading with the Kurdish region.

<...>

"They are still discussing this oil law at the federal level. It could take them another two or three years. We're not going to wait. We have lost enough time already.

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Hunt Oil deal could help shape Kurds' future

Drilling contract with Kurds could lead to regional autonomy – or aggravate sectarian strife

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

<...>

Baghdad and the Bush administration are not ready to embrace this approach and prefer a stronger central government. State Department officials say the Hunt deal faces legal uncertainties over whether regional or national oil legislation should prevail – even though a national oil law has yet to be enacted.

The officials also say the deal could undermine the Iraqi government and possibly provoke more violence over the loss of oil-rich territories that Arab Sunnis regard as theirs. Another fear among U.S. analysts is that autonomy among Iraq's main ethnic and religious groups would lead to an oil-rich Shiite state in the south that would become a satellite of Iran.

Many, including officials with other oil companies in Iraq, find it hard to believe that President Bush and Ray Hunt did not talk about this deal before it was signed, or that the Kurdistan Regional Government chose to award a concession to the U.S. company without paying much attention to its political connections with the White House.

Mr. Hunt is a longtime supporter of Mr. Bush. He is a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and was instrumental in getting SMU chosen as the site of the George W. Bush presidential library.

Mr. Bush said at a news conference that the Hunt Oil deal in Iraq was a complete surprise. Mr. Hunt said he has not talked about it with Mr. Bush or anyone else in the U.S. government, either before it was signed Sept. 8 or since.

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Here's what Bush said then:

"I knew nothing about the deal. I need to know exactly how it happened," Mr. Bush said at a White House news conference. "To the extent that it does undermine the ability for the government to come up with an oil revenue-sharing plan that unifies the country, obviously I'm – if it undermines that, I'm concerned."

Bush is clueless and Kerry was right:

All the Bush Administration has done is put a good soldier’s face on the President’s old, failed strategy. But even General Petraeus himself was candid enough to initially admit that even he doesn’t know if the current mission in Iraq is making us safer. The escalation sent American soldiers into harm’s way to give Iraqi politicians a chance and the breathing space to reach a political solution—but without deadlines, without accountability, without leverage—the Iraqis did nothing. The Iraqi government is as divided as it’s ever been. None of us should be surprised that there is no real political progress in Iraq today...

[spanone]

1. why have diplomacy when you can kick the shit out of them? but the surge is working

to what end one might ask.

[Quantess]

2. "Mission Accomplished" was almost 5 years ago!

But "...more than 170,000 brave young Americans will spend their holiday in Iraq."

[ProSense]

3. News for the RW

A Mirage For A Center

By Cernig

Righty bloggers like McQ are all agog today over an AFP story about bright lights and juice bars in "Baghdad's relatively safe Karrada suburb."

The AFP story is about:

an oasis of generator-driven light; a colourful jumble of trendy juice bars, cosy restaurants, fruit shops, roadside eateries and fish vendors, where children play, families dine and lovers meet.

and McQ is sure this is because the Surge has worked and the Fighting Keyboardists have carried troops and mainstream media alike to victory.

A couple of things the AFP story forgets to mention though:

Karrada has always been a relative haven in Baghdad, with many willing to pay its exhorbitant prices for a modicum of safety. Some violent incidents back in the Summer were a blemish on Karrada's record but it has always been the safest place in the city with "dozens of produce stalls, clothing stores and restaurants".

Karrada is the most affluent part of Baghdad, with the most expensive real estate and home to the city's university as well as government departments. It even has a direct bridge link to the Green Zone.

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The title of the AFP article: Baghdad by night -- juice bars, neon lights, bustling streets

Where's John McCain?

[ProSense]

4. How's the spin working out for Repubs?

36% - Republicans Increasingly Critical of Party

Mon Nov 19

Just 36% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the Republican Party does an excellent or good job of standing up for traditional GOP positions on such issues as "reducing the size of government, cutting taxes and promoting conservative social values" -- the lowest positive rating Republicans have given their party since Pew began tracking this measure in 2000. More than six-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (62%) say the party has done only a fair or poor job in advocating these traditional positions.

Read More

From the "read more" link in the article:

A year before the 2008 presidential election, most major national opinion trends decidedly favor the Democrats. Discontent with the state of the nation is markedly greater than it was four years ago. President Bush's approval rating has fallen from 50% to 30% over this period. And the Democrats' advantage over the Republicans on party affiliation is not only substantially greater than it was four years ago, but is the highest recorded during the past two decades.

<...>

Republicans not only are less engaged in the campaign, but they also rate their party's presidential candidates more negatively than do Democrats. Nearly half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (46%) rate the Republican presidential candidates as only fair or poor; by comparison, just 28% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents give the Democratic presidential field comparably low ratings.

[ProSense]

5. Spinning AQI

From WaPo

High profile attacks on civilians, military, and religious targets are the hallmark of AQI. Following are some of the more notable attacks attributed to the group:

* August 2003 bombings of the Jordanian embassy, UN headquarters in Baghdad, and a Shiite mosque in Najaf. The UN attack killed the world body's special envoy to Iraq, prompting the UN to withdraw.

* The February 2006 bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samara, Shiite Islam's holiest shrine. This bombing caused no injuries but severely damaged the holy site's golden dome, kicking off a wave of retaliatory sectarian violence that some experts have called a de facto civil war.

* A series of car bombs and mortar attacks in Sadr City that killed hundreds in November 2006, igniting further sectarian violence and retaliation.

* A series of car bomb attacks in August 2007 targeting Yazidi villages in northern Iraq that left as many as 700 dead, according to coalition forces. U.S. Air Force officials later announced the death of Abu Muhammad al-Afri, an alleged mastermind of the Yazidi strikes.

* AQI has also launched attacks outside Iraq. Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told lawmakers in July 2007 the bombing of American-owned hotels in Amman, Jordan, in 2005 "appears to have been orchestrated by AQI" (PDF). AQI fighters who have seen action in Iraq have also been linked to the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon where militants have clashed with Lebanese security forces, Benjamin said.

So the violence isn't the result of the civil war, AQI did it!