It s time to move the goalposts again:
U.S. military leaders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that most of the broad political goals President Bush laid out early this year in his announcement of a troop buildup will not be met this summer and are seeking ways to redefine success.
In September, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, is scheduled to present Congress with an assessment of progress in Iraq. Military officers in Baghdad and outside advisors working with Petraeus doubt that the three major goals set by U.S. officials for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki will be achieved by then.
Enactment of a new law to share Iraq’s oil revenue among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions is the only goal they think might be achieved in time, and even that is considered a long shot. The two other key benchmarks are provincial elections and a deal to allow more Sunni Arabs into government jobs.
Bush’s policies have failed. The war is a failure and a disaster. It is time to cut our losses. Hell, it is well beyond time to cut our losses.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
This is objectively pro-terrorist. Why do you hate America, John?
Pb
Give the surge time to work–just give it one last Friedman! You know what they say, the tenth Friedman is the charm! We’re turning the corner!
Zifnab
But if we pull out now, they’ll hate us for our freedom.
I believe this is the bill that gives US oil companies unfettered rights in Iraq for the next three or four decades. Effectively, this is the oil we paid so much blood to get. So, yeah, if Bush can’t ram this bill through the bombed-out shell of a Parliment that is the Iraqi Legislature, he’ll be taking quite a bit of heat from all those financial backers that saw him through ’00 and ’04.
Zifnab
I thought it was “Buy 9 Friendmans, get the next one free”
Keith
Let me quote Fred Barnes, defacto Bush jock-holder: “I think he’s [St. Petreaus I] gonna report uh great progress and say that the city is heavily pacified, and I think that will increase uh some of the public support.”
Bubblegum Tate
This = awesome
spoosmith
The oil law will come in the form of PSA’s – Production Sharing Agreements. These are basically a way for foreign companies to (seize) control (of) the revenues from a country’s natural resources – something that is forbidden according to the Geneva Conventions. The Iraqi’s will see very little, if any, of the revenues from the only resource they have.
I predict that the minute they get the PSA’s signed, Bush will declare it’s time to leave and stock the new bases with enough personnel to prevent attacks on the oil infrastructure – you know – like he did when they first invaded.
Jake
Oh for the days when words had fixed meanings. I guess I should blame it all on Clinton and his “How do you define…” shenanigans.
Fixed. It is considered a long shot by the US because it relies on the Iraqis not reading the fine print: All UR Oilz R Belong 2 US!! It is considered a long shot by the I.P. because they know any deal that gives the US anything but a kick in the arse will make them extremely unpopular and possibly dead.
It is too late for the US to do much in the way of wheeling and dealing. The people hate us. They don’t trust us. They want us to GtFo. Time to kiss the UN’s arse and beg them to pretty please help clean up our mess.
ed
The failure rate of just pulling out is astronomical. What we need is an Iraq-sized condom.
Pb
Freedom isn’t free. And what does he care, by then he’ll be yukking it up in Paraguay or whatever…
Wilfred
Seeing those benchmarks laid out like that, the stark, austere beauty of it, got me a bit choked up. To know that these young men have given their lives for Iraqi provincial elections was meaningful enough in its own right, but to know that every single death is paving the way for more Sunnis to hook up government jobs is, well, that’s Lord of the Rings shit right there, man.
“None heard their spirits’ shadows shake the grass
nor saw the Sunni Arabs glom up some cash”
It’s poetry, man.
RSA
Just preempting the standard right wing response.
I want Bush and the neocons to say, “Look, we may need to stay in Iraq for a couple of decades, and it’s going to mean a lot of American soldiers being killed and everyone’s taxes being raised. There’s be no progress reports until it’s done.” At least it would be out in the open. Instead it’s all happy talk: “We didn’t get to the goal line, but when we were sacked, it was only for a five yard loss!”
grumpy realist
Why do we allow incompetencies from our political administration that no self-respecting director would allow from the CEO.
Bush et al (and all their supporters) continually forget one thing: THEY work for US. If they want to return to Divine Right of Kings territory, let’s plonk them all down in Oklahoma and create their own little 17th-century empire. With a 17th-century technology level, please.
Tsulagi
Are you kidding me? Those goalposts have never been set in the ground once. They’ve always been on wheels hitched to the short busses.
mclaren
Claiming that we must abandond any battlefield at any time is rank defeatism and will not be tolerated by true patriotic Americans. America msut stand fast. Never retreat, never flinch, never lose our nerve.
This explains why we must immediately invade Canada. We have to clean up that unfinished business from 1846. 54-40 or fight!
IF WE DON’T FIGHT THE CANADIANS OVER THERE, WE’LL HAVE TO FIGHT THEM OVER HERE!
Jake
McZilla?
Dulcie
I thought it was more like a “bakers’ dozen”.
POTD – I’m wiping lemonade off my laptop.
ThymeZone
Stop bitching …. the surge is working.
Krista
Fighting? Hardly. We’re just enjoying the fact that your dollar is tanking — makes for some great shopping.
Jake
Oh. Fuck.
I’m going to assume this was inside the GZ.
And from the Washington Post:
Do I need to say how very, very bad, no good and fucked up things have gotten when this sort of shit happens? Not only do some unfriendly folks have a hostage that warranted four body guards, not only do they have uniforms that allow them to get a lot of places they might otherwise be unwelcome, but they can be sure that anyone in a police uniform is more now 50 – 75% likely to get shot if he startles someone.
And of course, everyone in the GZ must be crapping themselves stupid.
jg
Must be the same agreement the state of Louisianna signed.
Garth
O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
Blue Shark
Gee…us silly Dems warned of this fiasco, Five, four, three tow, one year(s) ago.
…Too bad the media cheer-led instead of investigated.
Jake
Jackalope? Oh Jaaackalope! Where are you boy? [whistles]
Oh, there you are!
RLaing
The real goalposts have probably never moved so much as an inch. There is 125 billion barrels of the best under Iraq, proven reserves, and possibly the same amount again in unexplored parts of the country. Before the war, U.S. oil majors were facing the grim prospect of being cut out entirely. Now Iraq is close to an oil law that will treat them very generously indeed.
Such motivations, while rational, don’t exactly bring the country bumpkins into the recruiting stations. Fear works much better for that, so it was used first. At this point the politicians will say whatever they have to say to maintain a military presence in the Iraq, because without that, corporate leverage over the country goes to zero.
Just at the moment, military recruiting in the U.S. is in free-fall. If the economy were providing jobs, there would probably be a draft, so it’s just as well that most of America’s manufacturing is now located in China, ha, ha.
We live in interesting times.
Antiquated Tory
No, Western oil companies are not going to into Iraq and grab a chunk of the action, for the excellent reason that there is an ongoing civil war in Iraq and no major Western oil company will touch it with a bargepole, PSA or no PSA. Let me quote Lounsbury on Aqoul, a man who has been involved in joint ventures in the Middle East for 20 years: