That Tingle Means it's Working
Doesn't it set a wonderful example for democracy when leaders in this country, both Democrat and Republican, call for the ouster of the elected Maliki government in Iraq?
And now for your first lesson in elected democracy -- the coup d'etat.
Oh, and number two -- installing a CIA-backed emergency government.
But let's all see this for what it is: another excuse to buy this shitty war some more time.
The whole idea of the surge was to establish some semblance of security and provide "breathing space" so that the Iraqi leaders could make political progress. And while the military has done a better job creating pockets of security, even while overall violence is up from last summer, the political side of the equation has gone backwards. The Sunnis have left the government entirely, and an emergency summit designed at bringing them back in has failed. Half of the 36 ministries have withdrawn support for the government and don't even attend meetings. Which raises another question: how do you tell who is showing up when they're all on vacation?
So what do we do now? Try to install the Allawi government back in. That way, when General Petraeus testifies before Congress that the surge has not created an environment where political reconciliation could take place -- i.e. the surge has failed -- we'll then pretend that was because we had the wrong team in charge. But now we have the right team in charge! And you can't pull the plug now that we have the right team in charge! Just you wait and see! It's all going to turn out great! Just give us a couple more months!
And by months, I mean years.
Meanwhile, this is the kind of spin you get from the right wing, who likes to think that we're actually in control of this situation. Here's a recent National Review editorial:
"The fact is that the surge is President Bush's policy, and one that he implemented over the vociferous opposition of Democrats who thought the best strategy against al Qaeda in Iraq was to begin to leave. Now the surge has helped turn Sunni tribes against al Qaeda, advancing the goal that nearly everyone in the U.S. notionally shares of routing the terror group from Iraq."
Then, of course, there's the reality: it was the Sunnis in Anbar province who decided to create an alliance against the Al Qaeda types, and that happened before the surge even started. So we didn't do that. They did. We simply armed them, funded them, and helped them. But they're not on our side. They're on their side. They were shooting at us and blowing up our convoys just months ago. We didn't stop and suddenly realize that we're in love with each other. You're thinking of a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan movie.
Plus, Anbar is entirely Sunni. It's like Utah for Mormons. So they don't have to deal with the Sunni-Shiite dynamic like the rest of the country. This is regular crazy Sunnis organizing against the extremely crazy Sunnis. With our guns and money. Is that the best we can do for now? Probably. Is it a long-term solution? Shit no.
So don't let them fool you with all the talk of "progress." They've simply, and for the 37th time, re-defined what "progress" means. And when we get to #65 - that more Iraqis have access to NFL Network than ever before -- I'll say, "Okay, okay. That is progress. ...Can we come home now?"
Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" which airs every Friday at 11PM.
Posted August 30, 2007 | 12:42 PM (EST)