Front page analysis in the Washington Post by Thomas E. Ricks includes a remarkable acknowledgment. It's not as if I would have expected him to simply describe the positive effects for the troop surge in Baghdad. But his juxtaposition of the shooting war in Iraq against the political war in Washington leads inescapably to the recognition that there is a common goal shared by insurgents in Iraq and Democrats in Congress: American troops must be out of Iraq before a stable democracy can be established there. It's a race against the clock.
Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who took over as the top U.S. commander in Iraq in February, cited the disparity last week. "The Washington clock is moving more rapidly than the Baghdad clock," he said in a television interview. "So we're obviously trying to speed up the Baghdad clock a bit and to produce some progress on the ground that can, perhaps . . . put a little more time on the Washington clock."
General Petraeus has been doing his part, and even Mr. Ricks, who has made a fortune on his predictions failure, grudgingly admits that the situation in Iraq has improved as a result. But Ricks and the Democrats are heavily invested in an American failure in Iraq, and no success can go unchallenged.
In Baghdad, there are a few signs of improvement, but they tend to be offset by worrisome indications elsewhere in Iraq.
Killing is down, but worrisome indications are up. The outlook is bleak. What's to be done?
Another military intelligence veteran of Iraq said he thinks the Petraeus approach is getting some results, but he predicted that violence will spike this summer, in part as an attempt by Iraqi factions to influence the U.S. political debate.
Yes, the question is, what will the Democrats do? Past violence by Iraqi factions, particularly the effectiveness of it, has gotten favorable coverage from Ricks and others and the Post. And it has been richly rewarded by by congressional Democrats. Insurgents now see real prospects for victory in the funding cutoff that congressional Democrats have dangled in front of them. It's a huge incentive, one that will induce greater violence come summer. Ricks, the insurgents, the Democrats -- they all understand the game and how it's played.
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