Never-ending Iraq ignorance

The switch of US strategic goals/perspectives in recent weeks is whiplash-inducing, and yesterday's WaPo article does a good job of providing the context of how drastically different the US military and political outlook is today than even a few months ago. The pinball approach to Iraq within the administration is absolutely maddening, and it's definitely a cause (rather than result) of the malaise described in the piece.

Not that this is new, but the primary problem is that we don't appear to have a specific goal. So when the lede includes the assertion that the Shia government is "the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq" but no explanation of what, precisely, the US effort is aiming for, it's difficult to evaluate what's actually going on. It's baffling that anybody working on this could still think there's some possibility for a "national unity government" or whatever -- Shia leaders think they're winning the civil war, and they're basically right. They're in such a good position that Sadr is talking about extending the Mahdi militia "stand down" (in name only, sure, but still) for another six months, and the only thing they're really worried about is the US arming and training a Sunni opposition army (see, e.g., strenuous, public denunciations of our Anbar policies by the UIA in recent weeks). Our policies now are feeding right into the paranoia of 60% of the country, and they see no reason to capitulate to a formerly oppressive minority in the midst of apparent victory against them.

Meanwhile, the US and military leaders are apparently only now realizing that the government for which they've been fighting isn't inclined to take advantage of this "political space" provided, and round and round we go. And while I'd love for Maliki & friends to suddenly decide to offer an olive branch to the Sunnis, we set up a political/electoral system in Iraq that makes such a move unnecessary -- and, from the not-unreasonable perspective of the Shia, counterproductive (to wit: "Maj. Mark Brady, who works on reconciliation issues, noted that a Sunni leader told him: "As soon as we finish with al-Qaeda, we start with the Shiite extremists." ") Marc Lynch -- and it's great to see him quoted in the WaPo piece; his insight is self-made but his surging profile is fully a product of the blogosphere -- is right when he says that warlordism is the natural result of our current policies. Why conservatives think otherwise is beyond me (I'd love to see, for example, some quotes comparing what officials say about Shia leaders needing to reach out to Sunnis with what the same people say about Israel and the Palestinians; somehow I doubt political reconciliation with an insurgent/terrorist opposition is a consistent virtue from the perspective of the right).

Now that al Qaeda in Iraq is "defeated" and the insurgency is ostensibly waning (as measured by reduced casualties, I guess), it seems the Bush administration needs a new enemy. Picking the powerful (and elected) Shia majority as that enemy, though, is a huge mistake.