Iraq gets new government as bombs kill 24
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki vowed to rein in violence and heal Iraq’s sectarian wounds after parliament approved his national unity government on Saturday to end months of stalemate that raised fears of civil war.
Hours after bombs killed 24 people to underline the scale of his task, Maliki said restoring stability was the top priority of a coalition whose formation gave Iraq its first fully sovereign government since U.S. troops overthrew Saddam Hussein.
We’ve been hearing from the Six Months Crowd about how the situation in Iraq will turn the corner soon, that political and economic stability will arrive any day, for 3 long years now. However, nothing ever improves in Iraq, no matter what they point to as progress. Not catching Saddam, not the capture of Zarquawi’s number 2 or 3 man, not elections or a new constitution or a newly formed government. Nothing. Talk of progress in Iraq is a chimera, a mythical creature that never seems to make an appearance, always both a deceit and an illusion.
(More below the fold)
(Cross-posted in a slightly expanded form at Daily Kos and My Left Wing)
Yesterday I spoke to a young friend of my son about my views on Iraq. I told him we need to get out, or at a minimum, establish a deadline to by which we will have pulled all our troops out. His response was one I hear frequently these days: that we have an obligation to stay until we can fix the mess we created. It’s an honorable position to take. Who among us doesn’t want to set right the wrongs that we caused with our own actions?
Nonetheless, no matter how noble this sentiment, I truly believe that taking such a stance, at this point in time, is frightfully naive and fundamentally misguided. Our good intentions can do nothing to ameliorate the catastrophe we inaugurated when we invaded Iraq. And nothing we attempt now will succeed. Not after so many broken promises and outright errors of judgment, nor after so many instances of waste and corruption, and certainly not after the torture and death of so many innocents.
It is time to acknowledge a hard truth: our mission in Iraq, whatever it was or might have been, has failed. Our occupation there has not initiated a surge of democracy across the Middle East, nor has it led to cheaper oil, a lowering of tensions in the region or the suppression of terrorism. In fact, just the opposite has occurred. There are more incidents of terror now than before, less regional stability, and heightened tensions among all countries there, from Israel and the Palestinians, to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Turkey and Iran.
We have sacrificed lives and money and what have we accomplished other than to enrich the pockets of certain well connected Republican businessmen and lobbyists? The world despises and distrusts us, and we lack the credibility to rally international support for legitimate security concerns in Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. We have fed the fires of Muslim hatred against our people for generations to come, and corroded the foundations of our once potent economic, political and military power.
Most of our allies have abandoned us, and we lack the strength and moral authority to attract new ones to our side. Even our most significant friend, Britain, now seriously questions the value of its “special relationship” with America, after the unmitigated bankruptcy of our “success.”
Yet none of our political leaders, from either party, with a few brave exceptions are willing to state what is now obvious to a majority of Americans; that it is time for us to leave Iraq, and succor the many wounds, both physical and spiritual, that our military misadventures there have generated. Time to reconstruct our military and heal the fractured bodies and minds of our soldiers. Time to re-focus our energy on solving the many problems we have within our own borders. Time to recover our international reputation, and our willingness to seek security not through unilateral action but as part of a multilateral alliance with other democratic nations.
None of this can be accomplished, however, so long as the Bush administration, and those in the Republican Party who would continue its failed policy of militarism and aggressive war, retain their hold on power. And the Bush regime cannot be effectively neutered until the Democratic Party unites behind the one simple message that the vast majority of Americans are waiting for them to proclaim, loudly and steadfastly, no matter what opposition they may face in the media or from the rabid war faction of the Republican Party.
The message? Merely this: It’s time to bring the troops home. Now.
Withdrawal of US Troops from Iraq
