Reality v. Rhetoric (aka- Surprise! Iraq Is Still A Security Nightmare!)

Lots of Iraq news in the past few days while I took a much-enjoyed break from blogging (anyone miss me?)... will try to process it all. The overarching story is that President Bush and the Republicans are going on the offensive on the Iraq issue.

First up is news that "the House today will embark on its first extended debate on the war, with Republican leaders daring Democrats to vote against a nonbinding resolution to hold firm on Iraq and the war on terrorism". The reason for this political stunt is obvious- "Republican leaders are moving quickly to capitalize on good news and trying to force Democrats on the defensive". Expect endless 9/11 references.

However, many congressional Republicans see this for what it is. Rep. Walter 'freedom fries' Jones Jr. stated yesterday that "This is nothing more or less than really a charade". And Rep. Wayne Gilchrest got even more to the point, stating "To me, the administration does not act like there's a war going on. The Congress certainly doesn't act like there's a war going on. If you're raising money to keep the majority, if you're thinking about gay marriage, if you're doing all this other peripheral stuff, what does that say to the guy who's about ready to drive over a land mine?" Bingo. We need a plan; the GOP leadership offers more slogans.

As for the Democrats, I hope they will not hide from this stunt. They should embrace it and use it as an opportunity to seriously debate the realities of this war. As a Huffington Post commenter quipped "How about a nonbinding resolution that 'The Iraq War was an unnecessary diversion from the real global fight against terrorism and has done more to promote that same terrorism worldwide than any other causative factor in the last decade.'? I'd vote for that." So would I. Another adds that "Democrats should pound away on the fact that we are less secure than we were the day after 9/11... Just because we have lost almost 2,500 soldiers, spent hundreds of billions of dollars and listened to the jingoism of this administration, we are not safer. We are broke, and we are not secure." Arianna Huffington herself made this same point on the foreign policy panel at Yearly Kos last weekend. Finally, a third adds that Democrats should get proactive and propose "a sufficient occupation force and a rebuilding plan" (the latter including rolling back the recent tax cuts to fund a 'Marshall Plan' for Iraq and replacing military contractors with unemployed Iraqis) to solve the underlying problems- the violence and destroyed infrastructure- in order to expose how hollow the current plan is. They get it... Democrats, do you?

The bigger story this week- the President makes another 'surprise' visit to Iraq!!!

AP: Bush backs Iraqi leader in surprise visit

President Bush assured Iraqis in a surprise visit to Baghdad on Tuesday that the United States stands with them and "the future of your country is in your hands." Bush discussed next steps in the troubled three-year-old Iraq war in a meeting with newly named Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki...

...Bush traveled to violence-rattled Baghdad less than a week after a U.S. air strike killed terror chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The president was expected to be in Baghdad a little more than five hours...

"Hey, just wanted to pop in and say hello. Sorry I can't stay long, but I've, umm, got to get the fuck out of here."

As usual, the media gushed over the trip.

I did a rant back in April over these White House 'surprise' visits to Iraq and how insane it is that the media ignores the reality of why the administration must travel in secret to that country (and how sovereign is Iraq really if the U.S. leader doesn't have to clear with the Prime Minister when he is coming?). Here is a summary of what I said then: "The elephant in the room (pardon the pun) that the media ignores every time is that these trips are only a 'surprise' because they have to be. If the trip was announced in advance, it would require extra security preparations to combat the extra violence and planned attacks that would surely await them upon arrival. The security situation in Iraq is a nightmare, the country is awash in violence, and the White House likely isn't sure which members of the Iraqi government can be trusted with advance knowledge of Bush administration travel plans. And so our country's leaders must travel in and out of Iraq in secret to speak with Iraqi leaders inside the heavily fortified Green Zone... The real surprise will be a day when Iraq is safe enough to visit openly and without military protection." That the President only stayed a few hours proves this point- the reason he had to come in secret and leave almost as soon as he arrived was so to avoid any kind of attack from occurring.

I'd give the President credit for being proactive, but we need real change, not photo-ops.

Glenn Greenwald sums up the madness that has been the resulting rhetoric from the trip-

As of two weeks ago, the long-standing consensus outside of the ever-dwindling circle of True Believers is that the Iraq invasion was a failure -- a mistake -- and the best we could hope for was to figure out a way to extricate ourselves from that country without triggering even worse disasters. For months and months, polls have showed that solid majorities of Americans believe the war was a mistake. That consensus didn't arise as a result of a single event, or a report of a car bomb, or because one bad thing happened. It was because the war itself has been failing fundamentally... But to the media, a photo op here, a cosmetic personnel change there, and the death of a single terrorist -- and all of those problems magically vanish.

Funny how that always happens, isn't it?

More spot-on analysis from the NY Times editorial page and Firedoglake (here and here).

Meanwhile there is some concern that Bush's trip may backfire on the Iraqi government-

[I]nstead of bolstering that effort [to unite the country of Iraq], Bush's trip could push away the very Sunni Arabs Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is trying to court... [because] many Iraqis are already wary of the Cabinet — assembled from second and third choices to overcome sectarian objections and bearing fingerprints of the Bush administration...

He could start by reminding them that he's much better for them than the White House's originally planned puppet leader for the country- Ahmed Chalabi. And hey, to be fair, Al-Maliki didn't know about the trip anyway, so if it plays well in Iraq, he can take credit for it. If it doesn't, he can feign ignorance of the whole thing.

Meanwhile, both U.S. and Iraqi forces took advantage of the recent press with a new attempt to crack down on violence. These crackdowns have always occurred around major events- elections, etc- and the real question is whether this is the beginning of a real solution or just a finger in the dam.

The trip also helped distract from news the U.S. plans to keep troops in Iraq for decades.

Bottom line- We all ideally would like to be proven wrong and have everything turn out great in Iraq. I have never and will never support the preemptive invasion of that country and the continued lies used to prop it up, but I would love nothing more than for the Iraqi people to somehow make some lemonade out of this lemon of a war. With that said, there is nothing defeatist or wrong with calling a spade a spade and pointing out that President Bush's strategy is not conducive to that outcome and is actually making the problem worse. As I noted at the beginning, the Democrats would do well to realize that.

[UPDATE: A sad milestone today- U.S. military deaths in Iraq reach 2,500 (AP)]