The extent of this betrayal is too ghastly to comprehend. What it says to me is that Maliki has no intention of seeking a political solution to Iraq’s troubles and has thrown in his lot with the ultra Shia nationalists who want a Sunni-free Iraq. How they get to that point will make Bosnia look like a picnic and Darfur pale in comparison. Tens of thousands of Sunnis killed with millions on the move as refugees. Utter, complete chaos and disaster.

Is there no one in Iraq with the vision and the guts to lead the country to something better?

Tell me again why we should still be in Iraq. This soooooooooo reminds me of Vietnam, when we couldn’t get the South Vietnamese Government we wanted–Diem was a Catholic who infuriated the Buddhists, etc. etc., so he had to be “deposed,” i.e. assassinated.

I see absolutely no point in our continued participation in an Iraqi civil war. The scandal is that we created the conditions that allowed it to germinate, based on the absurd neocon idea that by waving a purple finger we could create a 21st century Western style democracy in a brutalized country whose three factions have hated each other for centuries.

The previous commenter who said “the Democratic Party will be running against George Bush for a generation” has nailed it exactly.

Yours truly is pretty much the proof. As a long-time conservative, I no longer think that the Democrats have a monopoly on incompetence in foreign affairs. Bush’s botching of the “Global War on Terror” will have a lasting effect on U.S. politics.

He’s in Iraq. No, he’s in Iran. On a sight-seeing trip. Yeah, that’s the ticket: An adviser to Iraq’s prime minister said Thursday that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is in Iran, but denied he fled due to fear of…

Ahh, yes, an inspiring vision of triumph! Funny, I thought the objective of the “surge” had something to do with providing lasting political stability to the fragile young democracy of Iraq, not a transient lull in the Baghdad homicide rate while the death squads spread out over the rest of the country. But you keep right on declaring the “surge” an enormous success; I’m sure that’ll remove the stench of total failure from the Republican Party by the time of the 2008 elections. Of course, you’ll also have to devise some way to wipe the voters’ memories clean of the most manifestly unfit human being ever to squat on a White House toilet, much less actually sit in the Oval Office. You may as well just relax and enjoy it: the Democratic Party will be running against George Bush for a generation.

Maliki, Rubaie Arranged Muqtada’s Iranian Vacation? ABC News and CNN yesterday reported that Muqtada al-Sadr, fearing attack from US forces or assassination from the more extreme elements within his militia, left Iraq for Iran two to three weeks ago t…

1) We have proof now that surge is working. Hell, the mere *threat* of the surge is working to clean up Baghdad. Keeping it that way is entirely a different matter, but the first step is already working.

2) The Democrats are about to step in a huge pile of their own crap as they discuss how to triangulate their way safely past something that’s now null and void due to point #1, namely that the surge can’t work and that it should be attacked as the opening salvo in pulling out the troops. It’s already working, and if we leave, all that we’ve accomplished in Iraq goes away (along with, oh, a million lives.) The American people will notice both and put two and two together.

3) The Mehdi Army is now a wild card and needs to be removed from the picture. The enemy you know, you can anticipate and deal with. The enemy you don’t know is far more dangerous. It’s not the Doberman you know is in the neighbor’s back yard that’s the problem, it’s the stray rabid mutt running loose that’s the real threat. And it’s far past time to put this mutt down.

4) PM Maliki is not one of the good guys. Perhaps he never was, but if really is responsible for getting Muqtada out of Iraq, then we need to seriously consider what Iraq would look like without him in power and we need to explore that.

So, the good news, Al Sadr is out as the biggest threat in Iraq. The bad news is he may have been replaced by Malaki. Not a good day.