Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to My Right...

After stumbling around Iraq for 5 years like a blindfolded drunk, are things starting to turn around? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel, or is it merely a mirage based on hope?

I am at a point where I do not believe anything President Bush has to say. At the same time, I don't believe anything the Democrats have to say on this issue. The fact is, I don't believe anyone on this issue. I would love the opportunity to personally go to Baghdad and explore Iraq to determine what the heck is going on there, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon, so I spend time reading various reports to try to come to my own decisions. Readers are welcome to review my previous writings on the Iraq war.

Some time after the installation of Gen. Petreaus I was able to discern some signs that US policy finally might have turned in the right direction. Now comes this op-ed piece in the Monday (7/30) edition of the NYTIMES, in which analysts Michael E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack suggest that, indeed , we just might be on a winning path at this time, as long as you take a more nuanced approach to the term "winning".

VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

The problems in Iraq are two-fold: how to eliminate those people we consider "bad guys", such as al-Queda in Iraq and the foreign fighters it imports, and how to establish a stable Iraqi government. The former is a lot easier than the latter. As i stated previously, Iraq is an artificial creation which is riven with ancient tribal animosities. The best we might hope for is a loose confederation among the Shia, Kurds and Sunnis until such time as they themselves believe that a strong central government, indeed, a true nation, is in their interests. (Consider whether a powerful Iran on it's eastern border might convince some Iraqis that the time to coalesce into a nation might be sooner rather than later.)

Oh,in the fullest recognition of the urgency of their situation the "Iraqi" parliament just adjourned for the month of August.