"Rice and Straw Push Iraqis to Form Government." Dirt, Corn, and Water were unavailable for comment.
That is a wonderful headline, about Rice and Straw.
Nice, JM.
"We are entitled to say that whilst it is up to you, the Iraqis, to say who will fill these positions, someone must fill these positions and fill them quickly," Straw told reporters at a news conference today.
Are they? The Iraqi whoosamajigger gives the U.S. Secretary of State and UK Foreign Minister the right to set a deadline for forming a government? Holy Black Helicopters, Batman!
Or is it that if they don't form a government soon, we'll stop funding their reconstruction?
I've got a thing up on the Guardian blog noting that the category "things which it might make sense to have on your to-do list if you were God Almighty, but not otherwise" seems to be filling up in the news these days, but to be honest that joke is the only thing worth reading in it, so I wouldn't waste the time searching.
I don't get this new Rice/Straw lean-on-Iraq-to-democratize strategy. It's not so much a question of political will, as much as it's about women and children being burned alive in a atmosphere of ever-increasing sectarian strife. But hey, what do I know?
Let me lose what little Apostro-love I have left and say, "I listened to Gen. Zinni on one of those shows the other day, and I think we have to stay."
I wish I knew how to quit you, Tim.
But I don't.
"In another part of Anbar Sunday, a flash flood flipped a seven-ton troop transport truck, killing five Marines and wounding one, the military said today. Two Marines and one Navy corpsman also went missing, officials said. It was one of the deadliest military accidents this year."
At first glance, I incorrectly(?) took the first sentence here to mean that there was some kind of insurgent putsch which the accident happened during, and it was being titled 'Anbar Sunday' for some reason (c.f. 'Justice Sunday').
Just a couple links
Unacceptable to Sadr ...Iraq the Model
Juan Cole also has a discussion on how America scurries away without losing it's army on the road to Kuwait.
I don't know what it would mean if Sadr withdrew his 32 seats from the gov't. I am not sure why they hate Jaafari. My guess is that the idea is a de-facto partition with a facade of a real country in order to pull 50k Americans out before the midterms.
8: He just said that (1) he was against going in at the time, (2) he thinks it's a gigantic mess, both because they went in and because the went in badly, (c) but people misunderstand how crucial stability in Iraq is to stability in the Middle East and, by extension, the world.
Yeah. Stability can be as crucial as it likes (and I'm certainly not saying that isn't) but in the absence of an argument that leads from our staying in Iraq to stability in Iraq that doesn't require underpants gnomes to carry it off, I don't see that that's a reason for us to stay.
I'm not sure that gets me to (d) it would help to keep Iraq filled up with troops that, for the next two years, will be guided by Bush and Rumsfeld (or someone else that Bush picks). No reason to think they'll suddenly stop fucking up.
Hey! The doctrine of preemptive commenting has been discredited!
There is a subtle difference in our arguments, in that the thing we'd need but ain't got varies between "underpants gnomes" and "leaders smarter than Bush and Rumsfeld."
"Underpants gnomes" is more right, though.
Well, yes. It's not that Bush and Rumsfield are competent, but I don't know that it would help all that much if they were, in terms of achieving stability. If the job they're doing badly is impossible, then doing it well won't help.
The advantage of my approach is that "Is this job impossible?" is a harder question than "Will Bush and Rumsfeld be able to do it?"
The horrible truth (though certainly I've never heard Zinni or anyone else say this) is that I suspect our best option is to sit in Iraq, well-protected, and act as a finger on the scale as civil war goes on around us. Sooner or later, the various parties will come to a deal. It will be bloody before then. By selective attacs, I wonder if we can (a) forestall a larger civil war, and (ii) effect a roughly equitable solution more quickly.
I don't know. I'm not sure I want us to do that. But when serious people whose judgment I trust say that we can't afford to let this go and just get out, then I really, really worry that a short term solution will have very bad effects. At heart, I'm a technocrats, and when the technocrats worry, so do I.
Is the horrible truth that you suspect that, or do you suspect that is the horrible truth?
Sooner or later, the various parties will come to a deal.
How much later would you consider too long?
I meant the former, but it's really both. I really don't like the idea of our troops sitting in the middle of a civil war, and going out from time to time to kill the soldiers of only one side because that side is winning. Cripes, me might succeed in uniting Iraq by having them both turn against us.
25: Dunno. A while, though - up to a decade more.
I guess what I'm saying is that for a long time I've just been angry about our Iraq policy; increasingly, I hear the voices of people I respect saying things that make me scared of our Iraq policy.
to kill the soldiers of only one side because that side is winning.
If we're jumping in on the losing side, isn't that going to drag the whole process out longer? I mean, I can see picking a side because we want them to win, or picking the likely winner to end it quickly -- not so much helping out the underdog on principle.
28: Excellent point. The thought was to take away the incentive in winning and force a deal with sufficiently equitable terms that it could last. Maybe the way to go is straight to a strong man. Again, I don't know. Fucking Zinni.
OT, but don't let the door hit you...
But it makes more sense to note here, that the door should be able to do what it wants.
31: But does your link have a Snoopy dance? Huh? Huh?
Sometimes, it's hard to read the New York Times on Iraq without laughing out loud on the subway.
me might succeed in uniting Iraq
SCMT smash!