Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made a surprise visit to Ramadi yesterday, according to the Associated Press.
BAGHDAD -- Iraq's Shiite prime minister on Tuesday made a groundbreaking and unannounced visit to Ramadi, the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, a senior staff member told The Associated Press.
Al-Maliki and the Iraqi chief of security were reportedly meeting tribal leaders to encourage them to break with al Qaeda and stop the insurgent attacks. The PM's recent visibility in Baghdad and elsewhere coupled with his efforts to reach out to the Sunni's are cause to believe the security plan is working.
Meanwhile, for our predictable dose of pessimism we go to Washington Post reporter Thomas E. Ricks who rates front page real estate these days. His analysis concludes that conditions in Iraq were always are much worse than anybody ever thought.
One Army officer who recalled buying into the optimism of late 2005 and early 2006, when he was a commander in Iraq, said that in retrospect, the situation was far worse than he and others understood it to be. He said it was the Samarra bombing that led him to believe that Iraq was indeed caught in a civil war. "What Samarra came to mean for me was a defining point in time, almost like a teaching point, where the real face of the Iraq war became clear," he said.
Shouldn't we throw in the towel now, Ricks seems to ask?
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