The next six months, again

Blood on Our Hands
One month after pundits and editorialists, following the lead of the president, declared (yet again) new hope in Iraq, the death toll is soaring and alleged atrocities mount. Who, now, will dare speak up?

By Greg Mitchell
Editor and Publisher

(July 05, 2006) -- By now, the routine is not just appalling, but disgraceful. Some halfway positive event occurs in Iraq, the president urges patience while declaring strong progress, and editorial writers and pundits -- from respected columnists such as Thomas Friedman to blowhard TV bobbleheads like Chris Matthews -- suggest that surely things will turn around in the war in another six months.

Of course, this is exactly what they said six months ago, and six months before that, and six months before that.

It happened again in June, after the execution of al-Zarqawi and the forming of a new and possibly more stable government in Baghdad. This led to one of those periodic official promises of U.S. troop reductions within, you guessed it, another six months -- vows which gained headlines and favorable notices, and then were quietly retracted a few days later, as usual.

Several leading commentators cried that President Bush had gotten his "swagger" back -- as if this was a good thing.

And where are we now? Let's turn the microphone over to the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, who told the BBC on Tuesday that killing Zarqawi had not made Iraq safer. "In terms of the level of violence, it has not had any impact at this point," Khalilzad said. "As you know, the level of violence is still quite high."

That's the understatement of the month.

(The rest is here.)