February 28, 2006Quotable"Localized difficulties also persist, but I think, at the strategic level, this crisis -- a mosque attack leading to civil war -- is over... It was a serious crisis. I believe that Iraq came to the brink and came back." Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. He goes on: I give credit to Iraqi leaders for rising to the occasion," Khalilzad said. "Going to the brink, of course, but more importantly, pulling back. I am gratified that the decisive crisis caused by the attacks did not lead to an all-out civil war. The Iraqi people, I hope, will learn from this to use this as an opportunity for a new nationalism." There is a bleaker narrative, of course. But, at least for today, let's give Ambassador Khalilzad some props for helping the various factions pull through this very significant crisis. Not to mention, a massive tragedy: Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media. Ah, but stuff happens when your de facto war leader game-plans the wrong war, and his predictions go very, very awry. The President is at 34% (at least in one poll), in part one suspects, because of his refusal to hold such abysmally discredited figures to task. It has become unforgivable, really. Whether a tragedy or a farce, I don't know. Both, perhaps, at this point.
Comments
Check out the internals of that poll. Republicans are badly underrepresented. Posted by: joe at February 28, 2006 08:40 AM | Permalink to this commentIf there is any prospect for change at the top, which you seem to be encouraging, the Three simple questions necessary for any candidate must be: Are we at war? While there can be no doubt that predictions were wrong, the wrong predictions are only a byproduct of the real problem. To continue to opine about how the grand plan was good but derailed by poor leadership is living in a fantasy. Posted by: Davebo at February 28, 2006 01:28 PM | Permalink to this commentAmbassador Khalilzad gets props from the Western press all the time, usually without any explanation of what he's accomplished. (I've blogged about this a couple of times: http://allintensivepurposes.blogspot.com/2006/02/our-man-in-baghdad.html and http://allintensivepurposes.blogspot.com/2006/02/our-man-in-baghdad-ii.html. Not that either post is particularly well written, but it is something I've noticed over time.) I don't mean to knock the man, but I'm not clear what he's accomplishing, other than that he has the skill to get good press from the American media. Unlike most of them, he seems to know Iraqi politics and to talk to Iraqi political leaders. This is not a bad thing, but it should be table stakes, given our involvement in the country. Khalilzad's comments quoted above seem like the right thing to say, but is anyone in Iraq listening to him say them? Surely they will be heard more in this country than there. (I'd like to be wrong about that.) Posted by: Tyrone Slothrop at February 28, 2006 04:12 PM | Permalink to this commentYou are correct Joe. We wished to learn what intelligent people thought this time. Posted by: Martin at March 1, 2006 12:21 AM | Permalink to this comment
http://allintensivepurposes.blogspot.com/2006/02/our-man-in-baghdad.html Is he getting something done, or is he just good at getting good press? Posted by: Tyrone Slothrop at March 1, 2006 10:57 PM | Permalink to this comment
I wasn't trying to knock Khalilzad in a backhand way. If there's a good explanation out there of why he is such a genius, I'd like to see it. Posted by: Tyrone Slothrop at March 3, 2006 09:03 PM | Permalink to this comment |
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