On Iraq, Excitable Andy has been “trying to understand better: the surprising success (after a rocky start) of the Iraqi Army in Basra, the neutralization of the worst parts of the Sadr forces in Sadr City, increasing success in Mosul, and four-year lows in sectarian violence.” Apparently, he’s been busy for the last ten months and confused by Iranian propaganda.
Sully now frets that Barack Obama must not be caught in the trap of excessive pessimism:
[I]f Obama blindly insists nothing has changed, has no interest in reality on the ground, refuses to hear dissent, and does not acknowledge the surprising progress that has occurred there recently … he would be George W. Bush in reverse. I see no reason to believe he is…
Really? Let’s start with top Obama adviser David Axelrod lying about Obama’s opposition to the strategies that Sully mostly credits for improved conditions in Iraq. Let’s look at what Obama’s website says about the surge:
The Surge: The goal of the surge was to create space for Iraq’s political leaders to reach an agreement to end Iraq’s civil war. At great cost, our troops have helped reduce violence in some areas of Iraq, but even those reductions do not get us below the unsustainable levels of violence of mid-2006. Moreover, Iraq’s political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war.
Lest you think this might not be current Obama thinking, in recent days Obama has said that “We can’t afford to wait to bring the war in Iraq to a close,” while a top Obama foreign policy adviser told the Politico that “we have not seen any of the political progress that will be necessary to have that long-term stability.” Indeed, Camp Obama continues to roll out the long-discredited “100 years” tripe against John McCain.
The reality is that the current strategy has reduced violence well below that of mid-2006. If Camp Obama cared to listen, Brig. Gen. H.R. McMaster would tell them about the bottom-up and top-down reconciliation efforts underway in Iraq. Or, as Austin Bay notes:
The Iraqi government hasn’t met American expectations, which are largely shaped by the American presidential election cycle, but dismissing its achievements is arrogant and ignorant. It is also myopic, given the century-shaping regional and global implications of Iraqi success.
The Federalism Law, de-Baathification reforms and amnesty laws, and the Provincial Powers Act are major acts of legislation, especially when crafted, debated and passed in the midst of sensational terrorist attacks designed to shake the confidence of Iraqis and keep international media focused on conflict instead of maturing compromise.
Reconciliation and consolidation have not been achieved, though Iraqis clearly know a lot more about reconciliation in Iraq than Americans. The December 2006 execution of Saddam, marred though it was, removed the personality from the tyrant’s cult of personality. Saddam’s “former regime elements” believed that if they hung on Saddam would return to power. The dictator’s open and fair trial also served as a forum to express the people’s shared suffering.
Operation Charge of the Knights, begun in southern Iraq in March, followed by Lion’s Roar in the Mosul area, are security operations that have clearly served the larger political purposes of strengthening national support for the federal government. Kurds and Sunni Arabs expressed overwhelming support for Charge of the Knights attacks on Shiite gangs. The Mosul offensive was designed to destroy al Qaeda cells that have increasingly focused their violence on Iraqi Sunnis who have joined the political process.
Success over the last two years has been incremental  democracies tend to work that way. There are signs, however that a democratic foundation is being built for a more secure, productive and free Iraqi future.
Last week, at the first annual review of the International Compact with Iraq, international leaders lauded the country’s economic and political development, with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praising Iraq for “notable progress” in meeting economic, political and security targets set at last year’s conference: “If we had to use one word to describe the situation in Iraq today I would choose… hope.”
“Hope” is a word Obama uses constantly — but never with regard to Iraq. But with Sully at least trying to wrap his head around the progress in Iraq – even at this late date – perhaps there is still hope Obama will figure it out someday.
Tsk, tsk. It’s called “cognitive dissonance”, a.k.a. “realizing you put the week’s wages on the wrong nag.”
If Sullivan ever figures out what George Bush actually did regarding the FMA, his head may explode. There are vague hints that this may already have occurred.
Regards,
Ric
I know I’d feel better about the possibility of an Obama presidency if he would stop denying the progress made, and insisting we must pull out.
Because of my racism.
Baracky has already said he’s okey dokey with genocide. It’s kind of hard to walk that back. He way bad wants us to fail in Iraq. If he’s president Baracky will get what Baracky wants. He’s entitled like that.
Sure feets, but he also told us he could no more disavow his church than he could all black people. I think at this point all existing positions are negotiable if it helps him get the job he wants.
It just. Doesn’t. Matter.
http://tinyurl.com/4e6hvs
That’s not the change Barry was hoping for! Congrats to our troops. Maybe Keith Olbermann could stop the day count for mission accomplished.
Why withdraw from Iraq after less than a decade? After all it took Obama 20 plus years to withdraw from his racist church who thinks he will do any better when he gets in office.
Aside to thor (re B Moe’s link): If you’ve been waiting for the “money shot,” here it is.
Because to do so, he’d have to admit he hopes for failure and lots more dead people. That way, he’d have been right all along, and THAT’s the important thing. People’s lives far away? Not so much.
My son, Matt the Marine, is scheduled to go to Iraq some time at the end of the year.
The poop he heard is that they’ll be deploying in Anbar province, out near the Syrian border.
Guess what?
I am not worried about him being there.
Hell, he almost got his ass killed last week in a storm blown tent.
According to reports I’ve read, the Marines in Anbar are bored.
Thanks and best wishes to your son, N.
Watching BarryO reveal himself to be a too-clever-by-half, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants, empty-suited blowhard almost makes me want to back McCain.
Almost.
Well the Washington Post is wondering why no coverage of the war in an editorial, so maybe we’ll see some movement on this finally. This only helps McCain and Clinton and hurts Obama.
Godspeed to your son from me too, N.
In fairness, the seat of BarryO’s pants looks to be 1/10 scale of Hill’s.
Sure Baracky talks about Iraq and hope. He hopes to be able to surrender as soon as possible.
Do the networks realize how much dead air they’ll be paying for when Obama has to improvise on Iraq. Maybe they’ll fit some 15 sec. spots in during Barry’s pauses:
“I didn’t say uh.. *CIALIS – ANY TIME IS THE RIGHT TIME*… that the surge could not work, I merely said that uh..*Nutrisystem – Lose weight now!*…we shouldn’t uh…*JOHN MCCAIN FOR PRESIDENT*…uh…….uh….
[…] forced him to. That’s why I’m (cautiously) optimistic that he’s going to take Sullivan’s advice and start inching away from the knee-jerk pessimism about the war that characterized his […]
If the WaPo succeeds where our corner of the blogosphere has failed in getting the MSM and the “reality based community” to acknowledge the positive trends in Iraq then we can take them by the hand and lead them up to the next level of abstraction: Success is Iraq is contributing to successes in the larger war on terror, and the decline of the al Qaeda brand.
Baracky is still optimistic that the war will be a fiasco, but I guess slowly he’ll have to become more and more pessimistic. Those free Iraqi people mock him with their freedom. Plus, too many American soldiers what aren’t dead. The day is fast arriving when it’s easier to find fresh fruit in the average Iraqi’s house than at the Obama’s. That will be a grim milestone.
Speaking of people who will be suffering from cognitive dissonance:
Judge orders sect children returned to parents
SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN)  Parents of hundreds of children seized from a polygamist sect are free to begin picking up their kids under an order a Texas judge issued Monday.
Judge Barbara Walther told the Department of Family and Protective Services to allow parents to come get the 440 children starting at 10 a.m. CT (11 a.m. ET) Monday.
Read it and weep, nishit.
Yay! That’s the day we all became the baby-raping patriarchy daddy bunch.
– Well if this is the bare beginning of the reversal of the tide of Leftward Bush bad mouthing, even to the extent that some tiny acknowledgment of improving conditions in Iraq is all that deep BDS will allow them for now, you can’t say they didn’t wait until the absolute 11:59 hour.
– I’m still waiting for their meme that blows off 7+ years of rabid, foaming at the mouth, rapacious lying rhetoric.
– The best I can come up with is: “…..Well the fucking devil made us do it…That and Bush lied!….he fooled the American people and said there was a civil war, the bastard.”
Jeezus H. Christ! Did you all see that picture of ObamaSamaDingDong on that link B Moe put up? That expression? The angle of the head? The HALO?
No wonder He keeps people like Hammer Boy and nishibaby lubed up all the time.
He is truly the Obamessiah. Yea, verily.
N. O’ B. Good luck to your son.
– O!’s camp just announced that he will not be revealing his choice of a new church until after the January time frame. This, coming on the heals of his departure yesterday from the Trinity chuch he belonged to for 20 years, “because he didn’t want the stress of his campaign to weigh on, and effect, the churches freedom to preach”. (This has to be the single most feckless excuse in the history of the Republic, and the first time in recorded US history, when a candidate had to leave his church because he was running for office.)
– Apparently he feels his chances at the presidency are much improved if he can just prevent the electorate from knowing anything about him.
– Which, of course, tells you everything you need to know.
Good luck to your son, N. O’Brain. Send him our thanks for his service. You must be very proud.
May good fortune follow your son, N.O’Brain. My little brother is anarmy officer who has been to Afghanistan and Iraq, and my eldest nephew (older brother’s eldes son) is in basic at Pendelton.
[…] we can hope for is the sort of “declare victory and go home” strategy being hinted at by Sullivan. Things are getting better, so by all means let’s get the hell out before they get better […]
– Having a son who just turned 18 NO, I share your feelings, and wish your boy all the best, and a swift and safe return.
This,
“#4 – I think at this point all existing positions are negotiable if it helps him get the job he wants.”
is how you accomplish this,
“#26 – Apparently he feels his chances at the presidency are much improved if he can just prevent the electorate from knowing anything about him.”
No one can know your position if it is only yours in order to win election.
Thinking you know is an act of faith and akin to believing the hooker loves you because she called out your name.
Or tossed you a bottle of water.
If there’s one thing Sullivan’s proven these past several years, it’s that he’s adaptable to changing circumstances. It just takes him a while to catch up, sometimes.
N. O’B, God bless you and yours. And Semper Fi to your young man, to include a heartfelt thanks for taking the watch.
Everybody realizes where O! finds himself today, right?
He’s just spent the weekend watching his lunatic base alienate the sane portion of the national electorate, causing him to parse and prance to no benefit to himself at all. He’s confirmed as a liar and a fake to the average voter, and the Obamaniacs get a whiff of the revanchist from the Chosen One.
And today his handlers and media jock straps are trying to position him for a walk-back from immediate surrender… which is causing some of the apostles to start thinking about paper mache Obamaheads for Denver.
N. O’B:
Semper Fi and God bless–my son-in law–Lance Corporal–got back this February. He was stationed in Anbar. His unit deployed near the beginning of the surge, and they saw pretty heavy action for about six weeks. Then not so much, then boredom–thank God. His unit had not a single casualty. He won’t say, but my guess is that they kicked the living shit out of the rag heads, and the ass whuppin’ is continuing.
As for excitable Andy, his whatever is so far up Baracky’s backside that he won’t see clearly for a decade. I thought I’d seen puppy love when my little girl fell in love at age 12–hell, she’s model of maturity in comparison.
“#26 – Apparently he feels his chances at the presidency are much improved if he can just prevent the electorate from knowing anything about him.â€Â
No one can know your position if it is only yours in order to win election.
What is more changey than a chameleon?
Shit.
AHA! B Moe, that was hilarious last night. I even read it to RTO when he called.