America is just starting to wake up to the awesome scale of its Iraq disaster
The American public has decided that its boys should come home, but the ghosts of Baghdad will return with them
Timothy Garton Ash
The Guardian
Iraq is over. Iraq has not yet begun. Two conclusions from the American debate about Iraq, which dominates the media in the US to the exclusion of almost any other foreign story. Iraq is over insofar as the American public has decided that most US troops should leave. In a Gallup poll earlier this month, 71% favoured "removing all US troops from Iraq by April 1 of next year, except for a limited number that would be involved in counter-terrorism efforts". CNN's veteran political analyst Bill Schneider observes that in the latter years of the Vietnam war, the American public's basic attitude could be summarised as "either win or get out". He argues that it's the same with Iraq. Despite George Bush's increasingly desperate pleas, most Americans have now concluded that the US is not winning. So get out.
Since this is a democracy, their elected representatives are following where the people lead. Whatever the result of the latest round of Congressional position play - which included an all-night marathon on the floor of the Senate from Tuesday to Wednesday this week as Democrats attempted to outface a Republican filibuster - no one in Washington doubts that this is the way the wind blows. Publicly, there's still a sharp split along party lines, but leading Republicans are already breaking ranks to float their own phased troop reduction plans, together with proposals for partitioning Iraq between Sunni, Shia and Kurds.
Bush says he's determined to give the commanding general in Iraq, David Petraeus, exactly the troop levels he asks for when he reports back this September, and the White House may hold the line for now against a Democrat-controlled Congress. Leading Republican contenders for the presidency are still talking tough. However, the most outspoken protagonist of hanging in there to win in Iraq, John McCain, has seen his campaign nosedive.
(Continued here.)
Timothy Garton Ash
The Guardian
Iraq is over. Iraq has not yet begun. Two conclusions from the American debate about Iraq, which dominates the media in the US to the exclusion of almost any other foreign story. Iraq is over insofar as the American public has decided that most US troops should leave. In a Gallup poll earlier this month, 71% favoured "removing all US troops from Iraq by April 1 of next year, except for a limited number that would be involved in counter-terrorism efforts". CNN's veteran political analyst Bill Schneider observes that in the latter years of the Vietnam war, the American public's basic attitude could be summarised as "either win or get out". He argues that it's the same with Iraq. Despite George Bush's increasingly desperate pleas, most Americans have now concluded that the US is not winning. So get out.
Since this is a democracy, their elected representatives are following where the people lead. Whatever the result of the latest round of Congressional position play - which included an all-night marathon on the floor of the Senate from Tuesday to Wednesday this week as Democrats attempted to outface a Republican filibuster - no one in Washington doubts that this is the way the wind blows. Publicly, there's still a sharp split along party lines, but leading Republicans are already breaking ranks to float their own phased troop reduction plans, together with proposals for partitioning Iraq between Sunni, Shia and Kurds.
Bush says he's determined to give the commanding general in Iraq, David Petraeus, exactly the troop levels he asks for when he reports back this September, and the White House may hold the line for now against a Democrat-controlled Congress. Leading Republican contenders for the presidency are still talking tough. However, the most outspoken protagonist of hanging in there to win in Iraq, John McCain, has seen his campaign nosedive.
(Continued here.)
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