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AP Analysis: US Now Winning Iraq War
By Robert Burns and Robert Reid
The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost.
The AP says this? The AP?
| Robert Burns is a NYT reporter and a pretty sharp cookie. He's had good reporting over the years and every time I see him interviewed on TV he has something interesting to say. I think he saw the results of the surge well before his masters on 42nd street did. |
Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.
Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.
That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had.
| No, Bush referred to 'major combat operations', which is different. Fault Bush if you like for missing the turn of events in 2004-05, but don't use irrelevant statements against him. |
The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.
| Exactly what we should be doing, and what we said we wanted to do from the very beginning. We're three years later than we could have been, but we wouldn't be doing it at all if Senators Obama, Reid, etc. had had their way. |
Scattered battles go on, especially against al-Qaida holdouts north of Baghdad. But organized resistance, with the steady drumbeat of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and ambushes that once rocked the capital daily, has all but ceased.
This amounts to more than a lull in the violence. It reflects a fundamental shift in the outlook for the Sunni minority, which held power under Saddam Hussein. They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.
Posted by: Matt 2008-07-27 |
