Given what Obama has said about foreign policy and Iraq — especially his primary focus on troop withdrawal….

…I’d have to conclude he things the US lost the Korean War and is still prolonging the failure by keeping troops in South Korea.

As the party faces questions over money problems for the convention, Democratic Party Chairman Howar…

http://www.timvp.com/donnareed0.jpg

DONNA REED? Holy Christ Michael, someone should check your man genes.

Reed was fine in the 1930’s but she was a cow by the 50’s.

ed.

July 4: Daniel Endres flew to Baghdad in March to take up his demanding new post as UNHCR’s representative in Iraq, managing a team of around 100 staff – most of them in Iraq.

Have you ever ventured outside the Green Zone?

Only once, when I went to present my credentials to the Minister of Foreign Affairs [Hoshyar Zebari]. I was sitting in a Humvee. It looked like we were going into combat and they blocked the roads for our convoy. I did not feel good about it as we were getting a lot of angry looks from Iraqi men walking in the street. We appreciate the strong security, but I hope in the long run we find a way [to get around] more suited to a humanitarian agency.

What is UNHCR able to do currently in Iraq?

There are 1.8 million recent internally displaced people in Iraq and at least a third are extremely vulnerable and need emergency assistance. Then there are 42,000 refugees and many of them also live in precarious conditions. So, there is a need for emergency type interventions and that’s provided through non-food item packages, including a tent, blankets, plastic sheets, jerry cans and so on. They have been given to 300,000 individuals – quite a substantial intervention.

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/iraq?page=news&id=486e36fc4

http://sidewaysmencken.blogspot.com/2008/04/did-we-just-win-war.html

Of course I wrote more than a year and a half ago that we might have just lost another war, Afghanistan. It’s nice to see that Mr. McCain may be waking up to that reality.

http://donklephant.com/2006/09/06/did-we-just-lose/

Someone should hire you as a soothesayer. Or a stock tout.

ed.

“…due to the fact that now we are enjoying a modicum of success in Iraq on all fronts.”

Where do you get this information? I would like to read it too.

see reply to comment above.

ed.

That’s the danger of using a 6 month old piece of analysis to describe what is happening today.

Yes the Sunnis could turn those guns on Shias when we’re gone. But that possibility is much less now than it was 6 months ago. And you way underestimate the political progress (you’re listening to one of the harshest conservative critics of the war here). Tens of thousands of Sunnis have ben released from prison. Sunnis are being allowed to join the army and police. (The Iraqis have begun taking over as paymasters by the way for those security units we created.)

Apparently, Iraqis are returning to the country at the rate of about 120,000 a month according to the UN (I think that pace has slowed recently) partially because they are getting kicked out of Syria. The return to their old homes is going much slower - around 10,000 a month but clearing out the militias may increase that number.

Just like there will be no definitive “end” to the war there will be no “breakthrough” moment politically. Many, many things are happening in the central and southern provinces at the street level that taken together, add up to a promising beginning.

But it all could go south if we or the Israelis hit Iran. I see that as the biggest danger right now. I think the rest is just grinding effort to improve security, bring basic services back, rebuild the country, and forge a nation out of several separate parts. There is movement across the board on all these fronts - slow, steady progress.

I would be very surprised if all but a residual force of 40,000 or so were in the country by January 2011 - slightly longer timeline than Obama’s (24 instead of 16 months) but very doable as long as things keep improving.

ed.