Can’t wait to hear howJuan Cole and Josh Marshall are going to dismiss this as a failure:
The Security Council was expected to vote unanimously late today in favor of an American-British resolution to end the formal occupation of Iraq on June 30 and transfer “full sovereignty” to an Iraqi interim government.
In addition to giving international legitimacy to the new caretaker government, the resolution authorizes an American-led multinational force, now at 160,000 troops, to use “all necessary measures” in “partnership” with Iraqi forces to bring peace. It also defines the United Nations role in post-transition Iraq.
All together now:
“QQQQQQQQQQuagmire. Brutal AFghan Winter.”
Lex
Sorry to burst the balloon, but if you don’t have full control of your own military, your own coinage and your own natural resources, it ain’t full sovereignty. It is both a symbolic and substantive step toward, and a positive development in the pursuit of, full sovereignty for Iraq, but it ain’t the real deal.
Rick
Don’t forget: “Arab street!” “Arab street!”
Cordially…
scott
Lex is right, John. The democrats are just going to continue to move the bar. You know, like, “oh, you found a WMD?…well, it isn’t a STOCKPILE.”
So here we go again…we have unanimous support for the transition, and what will the cry from the left be? “Well, its not FULL sovereignty!”
Far North
Oh, well, that’s different. The Iraq war is an overwhelming success. And all we had to do was set 6/30 as the magical date.
Bush tried to declare victory once with the “mission accomplished Top Gun” stunt but too many people in Iraq weren’t buying it.
The conservatives sure showed us who was right and who was wrong. Quagmire, schmagmire.
Everything about the new century conservative is image. The illusion of soveriegnty, the illusion of homeland security, the illusion of fighting terror.
nukular opshun
This site proves Barnum correct.
willyb
Lex,
Sovereignty is an Iraqi government, rather than the Coalition Provisional Authority, in charge of of Iraq
Lex
Well, Willy, obviously our definitions of sovereignty differ. DAMN that Socrates, insisting we define our terms! ;-)
willyb
It depends on what the definition of “is” is.
Well, Lex, if you’re not going to use the common meaning of a term, what’s the sense of having a conversion about the degree of a thing? Are you saying that the substance in the post by scott is correct, that the left arbitrarily moves the bar to suit its need for the correct political conclusion?
Patrick
Northie,
Let’s look back at the tape.
Saddam’s line in the sand, beyond which he’d use chemical weapons (which he had – binary sarin-filled artillery shells is one example.) Brutal Iraqi summers killing thousands. Tens of thousands of GI bodies coming home in body bags. Quagmire. House-to-house fighting in all major cities. The dreaded “Republican Guard”. The fourth largest army in the world. Hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming across borders into neighboring countries.
Let’s compare scorecards. No checks on mine. None of those feared things happened. Mostly successes, some large, many more small, some setbacks. Winning hearts and minds a few at a time, and working the small pockets of resistance.
Will it ultimately be worth it? Only time will tell. I can’t peer into the future, apparently unlike you.
Your pitiful misrepresentation of the “Mission Accomplished” event shows how truly disingenuous you can be.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Isn’t it still sarin-filled artillery shell (singular)?
I didn’t expect the conventional war to be as hard as your comment indicates, Patrick, but I did expect it to be much harder than it was.
On the other hand, I expected our “occupation” to look a lot like, say, Israel in Lebanon if not Israel in Gaza, and on that, things are looking a lot better for my prediction than yours. In case you’ve forgotten, the official word was 30,000 US troops left in December 03; everyone else home for Xmas.
SDN
Well, singular if you don’t count all those “pesticides” stored in underground bunkers…. Funny, mine seem to do pretty well under the sink.
And I know what MY military knowledge is: Chemical artillery shells definitely don’t get produced in batches of one. However, Saddam had a nasty habit of NOT separating out or marking his shells, according to the USAF airbase NBC defense troops I work with, a habit he demonstrated in Gulf War I. The infamous “chemical plume” when that Iraqi ammo dump was blown up then came from just that habit.