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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (238414)	7/31/2007 5:05:43 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Its worse.... now that the "surge" appears to be achieving some measure of success although not a trend as yet....the focus has shifted from the military to the political arena. For those invested in failure there is plenty of failure in Iraq to look at, starting with the political class. Did you see John Burn's interview with Hugh Hewitt? He describes a political class that is fatalistic about an eventual civil war, and so is completely unwilling to make any compromises now. Arabs tend to stink at making compromises anyway; that's why the political culture across the Arab world tends to look the way it does. However, speaking from the point of view of the US' interests, it is important to achieve a victory against AQI. Important for giving Iraq any chance to sort its own affairs - you can't reorder your house while somebody is actively trying to burn it down - and important for global perceptions. AQ is going down in Muslim estimation because AQ is becoming synonymous with car bombing large numbers of Muslims. Blow up people who are cheering the soccer victory, way to go guys. The US needs to make AQ the "weak horse" in people's eyes. If the US - and the Iraqi army, that is more and more a real force, after years of training - can do that, we will have to see how the situation looks then.