Great news for Iraq. And one wonders if this call for reconciliation from Ammar al-Hakim yesterday had a lot to do with it. Regardless, now no one can deny reconciliation is happening:
Some Shi’ite lawmakers said the new law was too lax and some Sunnis said it was still too severe, but a majority backed its main provisions in drawn-out, article-by-article voting.
Heh. That sounds like suspiciously like… democracy. You could replace Sunni and Shi’ite with Republican and Democrat in that sentence and it would apply to a lot of legislation here in America.
Speaking of our own despised lawmakers, one has to wonder what the new “Surrender Iraq To Terrorists Caucus” talking points will be. For some time now the mantra has been “no political progress,” and while its doubtful many of them really believed that (given all the grassroots reconciliation, sharing of oil revenues, and hiring of Baathists that had already happened) that mantra’s going to have to change now: “little political progress” just doesn’t have the air of hopelessness that goes with “no political progress.” My guess is they’ll make harping on the cost in lives and money their primary focus, as that’s probably their best argument now.
How do you think the defeatist message will change? Or is that too cynical, and is it possible many will embrace the possibility of a successful mission in Iraq?
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Success in Iraq will be declared by the media in December 2008. There will be some nearly symbolic benchmark that will pass, and they’ll say, “Aha! See! The hardliners knew they had to give in, because they didn’t want to face consequences from incoming President Clinton!”
Dave,
this is great news. Though I think it’s not hard to imagine the “no political progress” crowd as really believing there’s no political progress. Maybe it’s willful ignorance on their part, but it isn’t a stretch for me to count them as honest in their opinions.
Well, true, there are shades of truth. They could claim to mean in the limited sense of not having passed the three benchmark laws.
I think the passage of this is a good sign, but it remains to be seen how it will be enforced. The NYT and WP quotes various Shiite government officials as saying this law will allow the government to further purge as many as 27,000 current Sunni government officials, while at the same allowing 13,000 to 31,000 new Sunni to be hired.
According to Hillary on Meet the Press (paraphrased) the Iraqi government had no incentive to meet benchmarks last year. But as they see good chances for a Dem to be the next president, (with all candiates pledging to withdraw troops) they now have incentive to work out a reconciliation.
Elsewhere I saw a good answer.
Hey! Senator Clinton reads Dean’s World! Note the time, more than 12 hours before Meet the Press.
The anti-war activists in the Democrat Party will say that the prospect of peace could not have been possible without their opposition. The time lines did it.
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