Iraq & A Needed Change That Will Not Occur

The editors of the Washington Post discuss today the many positive changes in Iraq, concluding that we are winning the war there. On that basis, they suggest that Obama and his fellow Democrats develop a plan to exploit the success, not cling to a vision of defeat and withdraw. It is a call likely to fall upon deaf ears.
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This today from the Washington Post:

There's been a relative lull in news coverage and debate about Iraq in recent weeks -- which is odd, because May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war.

Lull? The WaPo editors can't be that clueless. MSM coverage is down 92% over 2007 and what little coverage there is tends to be incredibly twisted. This is not a lull, its the left-wing MSM waging their own war of agenda journalism on the Iraq war, highlighting the negative and ignoring success. Given the degree of success over the past year, the "lull" is fully understandable.

. . . [Tlhe Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have "never been closer to defeat than they are now."

Iraq passed a turning point last fall when the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign launched in early 2007 produced a dramatic drop in violence and quelled the incipient sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. Now, another tipping point may be near, one that sees the Iraqi government and army restoring order in almost all of the country, dispersing both rival militias and the Iranian-trained "special groups" that have used them as cover to wage war against Americans. It is -- of course -- too early to celebrate; though now in disarray, the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr could still regroup, and Iran will almost certainly seek to stir up new violence before the U.S. and Iraqi elections this fall. . . .

Iran is the single greatest threat to Iraq, to America and to the world. This is a zero sum game for the mad mullahs. A democratic Iraq that honors the millenia old Shia tradition of quietism poses a mortal threat to Iran's theocracy, built as it is upon Khomeini's bastardization of the Shia tradition with the velyat e faqi. Iran's imperative to export their revolution and the threat posed by Iraq mean that Iranian efforts to move the U.S. out of Iraq - as they are doing now over the SOFA agreement - and their deadly proxy war to subvert the Iraqi government will not end unless ended by force or the threat of force (see Next Moves in an Existential Chess Match). Iran's proxy war will intensify exponentially if the U.S. fully withdraws from Iraq.

. . . [T]he rapidly improving conditions should allow U.S. commanders to make some welcome adjustments -- and it ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the "this-war-is-lost" caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

. . . Gen. Petraeus pointed out that attacks in Iraq hit a four-year low in mid-May and that Iraqi forces were finally taking the lead in combat and on multiple fronts at once -- something that was inconceivable a year ago. As a result the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki now has "unparalleled" public support, as Gen. Petraeus put it, and U.S. casualties are dropping sharply. Eighteen American soldiers died in May, the lowest total of the war and an 86 percent drop from the 126 who died in May 2007.

If the positive trends continue, proponents of withdrawing most U.S. troops, such as Mr. Obama, might be able to responsibly carry out further pullouts next year. Still, the likely Democratic nominee needs a plan for Iraq based on sustaining an improving situation, rather than abandoning a failed enterprise. That will mean tying withdrawals to the evolution of the Iraqi army and government, rather than an arbitrary timetable; Iraq's 2009 elections will be crucial. It also should mean providing enough troops and air power to continue backing up Iraqi army operations such as those in Basra and Sadr City. When Mr. Obama floated his strategy for Iraq last year, the United States appeared doomed to defeat. Now he needs a plan for success.

Read the entire post. Perhaps Obama will take the advice of the Washington Post, but I sincerely doubt it. The far left is absolutely wedded to the idea of declaring Iraq a defeat at any cost in order to both take political power and to discredit the right. Further, socialists that now dominate the left are not rational people.

Socialism is founded on the dogma that Western civilization is an oppressing force in the world. Thus, any use of force or continuation of force in order to better the situation of the U.S. - or any nation where socialists hold sway - will rarely, if ever, be tolerated. Interestingly, our modern socialists have no problem arguing that we should weigh in with military force in areas where U.S. strategic interests are not directly implicated, such as Obama's call for the U.S. to intervene in the Sudan. It truly is a logical disconnect that points to a tenuous grasp of reality. Therefore, I expect no one from the "surrender-now" caucus, including Obama, to allow the changing facts of Iraq and Iran to in any way sully their narrative or alter their future plans.