Do you remember the point of the surge?

A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq’s provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation’s political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq’s constitution.

The reduction in violence is welcome but is only a portion of what needs to happen.

“what needs to happen”… or else what?

Iraqi parliament adopts deBaathification law.

Iraq is now a different place from one year ago. Much hard work remains, but levels of violence are significantly reduced. Hope is returning to Baghdad, and hope is returning to towns and villages throughout the country. Iraqis who fled the violence are beginning to return and rebuild their lives. Al Qaeda remains dangerous, and it will continue to target the innocent with violence. But we’ve dealt al Qaeda in Iraq heavy blows, and it now faces a growing uprising of ordinary Iraqis who want to live peaceful lives. Extremist militias remain a concern. But they, too, have been disrupted, and moderates are turning on those who espouse violence. Iran’s role in fomenting violence has been exposed; Iranian agents are in our custody, and we are learning more about how Iran has supported extremist groups with training and lethal aid.
Iraqis are gradually take [sic] control of their country. Over the past year, Iraqi forces conducted a surge of their own, generating well over 100,000 more Iraqi police and soldiers to sustain the security gains. Tens of thousands of concerned local citizens are protecting their communities, and working with coalition and Iraqi forces to ensure al Qaeda cannot return. The Iraqi government is distributing oil revenues across the country, so that reconstruction can follow hard-won security gains. And from Kirkuk to Ramadi, to Karbala to Bagdad, the people of Iraq — Sunni, Shia, and Kurd — are coming together at the grass roots to build a common future.

These improvements are allowing some U.S. forces to return home — a return on success that has now begun. One Army brigade and one Marine Expeditionary Unit have already come home, and they will not be replaced. In the coming months, four additional brigades and two Marine battalions will follow suit. Any additional reduction will be based on the recommendation of General Petraeus, and those recommendations will be based entirely on the conditions on the ground in Iraq.

Source.

Nope, nothing to see here.

I saw that yesterday, N2L. Good news. Hopefully the Sunnis will take it that way.

Well, Adam, does it need to be spelled out:
To have a functioning democracy?
To avoid civil war?
And presumably in the view of the President: for the United States to leave?

N2:

On closer examination, I’ll hold my praise for the new law until we see how the government implements it:

While the measure would reinstate many former Baathists, some political leaders said it would also force thousands of other former party members out of current government jobs and into retirement — especially in the security forces, where American military officials have worked hard to increase the role of Sunnis. One member of Iraq’s current de-Baathification committee said the law could even push 7,000 active Interior Ministry employees into retirement…

One Shiite politician, who spoke on condition that his name not be used, said the new law could forcibly retire up to 27,000 former Baathists, who would receive pensions.

Other officials said the legislation could allow from 13,000 to 31,000 former Baathists back into the government.

Preston, it’s progress, any way you look at it, based on where they’ve come from since 1932.
There will need to be an entire generation, at the minimum, of Iraqis that have lived in a free and representative republic, before the nightmares of their existence have subsided.
I don’t understand why so many expect results that have never transpired in any other country that has been freed from tyranny. I think it must be the drive-thru mentality so many in this country have grown up with.

When is anyone going to ask Obama to defend what little record he has in politics? Who is going to bring up his disagreement with the Supreme Court and the US Congress banning partial birth abortion?

Who is going to bring up his Illinois record wehre he voted AGAINST the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (an act which medically protected a baby who had lived despite an attempted abortion)?

What kind of human rights is he for, anyhow?

I wouldn’t trust this man or vote for him under any circumstances.

There will need to be an entire generation, at the minimum, of Iraqis that have lived in a free and representative republic, before the nightmares of their existence have subsided.

That, notably, wasn’t the argument that the Administration made when it persuaded Congress to give it the Authority to put Americans on Iraqi soil.

So the goal posts have shifted, once again.
It’s progress, and it has occurred as a direct result of Congressional Authority.

Wow! In response to my comment about the Bush Administration’s changing justifications for going to and staying in Iraq you claim that I’m ‘moving the goalposts’!

How post-modern of you.

Henh.
The job isn’t finished, Congress continues to fund our operation, and there is real and measurable progress. I don’t believe, as much as you would like for me to, that I need to argue for or against the President’s administration and the reasons why Congress authorized the use of force, or it’s ongoing operation in Iraq. It was you who derailed this thread in the first comment, because you don’t want to talk about Obambis refusal to recognize the Petraeus surge has been a success. Nothing else could get done in Iraq, until security had improved, it has, and the progress is continuing.
It doesn’t matter what is said, you will continue your distortions.

As a side note, Obambi’s main opponent, Mrs. Clinton, is now trying to distort what she has done, and what is happening in Iraq. Typical.

Democrats haven’t felt the surge effect yet, and it shows. Democratic congressional leaders insist the surge has achieved little that matters. Until questioned in a televised debate in New Hampshire, the Democratic presidential candidates had largely ignored the surge.

Barack Obama was the most disappointing in the debate. He offered an imaginative excuse for dismissing the surge: that the embrace of American forces in Iraq by Sunnis, the ruling ethnic group under Saddam Hussein, had been prompted by the Democratic election victory in 2006. The Sunnis were suddenly fearful of an American pullout that would leave them vulnerable to Shia oppression.

But the Sunni Awakening was a rebellion against the brutality of al Qaeda, the one-time ally of the Sunnis in the insurgency. And it began well before the American election. Indeed Sunni leaders have made clear that the Awakening happened because of their confidence the Americans would be sticking around to protect them from al Qaeda reprisals.

The Surge Effect.

“To have a functioning democracy?”
agreed but only a moron would argue that progress isn’t underway.

“To avoid civil war?”
this is a noble goal, and while in americas best interest and arguably the iraqis, it’s an artificial standard of victory.

“…for the United States to leave?”
you, like obama, still seem to want to retreat with victory in sight. why? are you so consumed with bipartisan points scoring that you can only see victory via retreat?

you’ve established that your patience is nill but there are still many including the majority of iraqis that still want america to have a presence in the country. suggesting that progress “is only a portion of what needs to happen” shows what a whiney, bitchty, entitled, lttle baby you are.

As much as I’d like Adam’s comment to be the last word: Avoiding civil war is “an artificial standard of victory” WTF? I want to add yet more indication that the de-Baathification law is much less than meets the eye.

“I wouldn’t come back to my job because of this law,” Sunni parliament member Saleh Mutlak said. “It’s humiliating to the people. You have to condemn yourself, and then be investigated, and then you could be killed [by someone] after going to the committee.”

The vote itself showed how divided Iraqis remain on the matter. Barely 150 members of the 275-seat parliament attended the session.

Mutlak’s National Dialogue Front, with 11 seats, and some members of another Sunni bloc, the 44-seat Iraqi Accordance Front, boycotted the vote. All major Shiite parties in attendance voted for the legislation, including 30 lawmakers loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr. But if some endorsed the measure, others skipped the session rather than vote for a proposal they vehemently opposed.

“I consider this law as a pure American law aiming to restore the Baath Party to the political process,” said Sadr lawmaker Maha Adil Mehdi, who boycotted the session. “I refuse this law completely.”

Others whose parties have been associated with the mass purges and even attacks on former Baathists backed the law.

It’s typical that the measure was immediately praised as an progress by an Administration who spins looting as ‘freedom’ and car bombings as an insurgency in the ‘last throes.’

not that i need to defend my positions to such a moron anyway, but does a civil war automatically negate prospects for a functioning democracy?
the truth is, watching you blabber about the latest quote or article you read and trying to use it as a reason to constantly pussy out, shows us what kind of person you are. then you have the nerve to accuse others of surrounding themselves with propoganda.

seriously, could you just clearly state your complaints instead of just bitching? is it that americans are in iraq? or how long they will be there? or lack of progress on security? or lack of progress by iraqis? lack of progress by their government? people dying?
WHAT’S YOUR SOLUTION? you don’t have one.

I find it so typical of the BDS left, that any sign of progress can be dismissed as meaningless, because not everyone in Iraq is in full agreement. Sounds like a representative republic with freedom of speech, to me. You looked at the discourse in this country, and the daily workings of our government, lately?
Back to the original point of this thread, Obambi, and his fellow defeatocrats. There is significant progress in Iraq, and to acknowledge it, and that W was right all along, would put them in a position they are incapable of accepting, as the entire donk platform is the U.S. has to have this crisis or that crisis, and only government bailouts, multi-billion dollar incentive packages, higher taxes, and more bureaucracy can solve them. If things aren’t in crisis mode, the donks can’t justify more government, higher taxes, less freedom, and less personal responsibility.

Adam, good question. Unfortunately you can’t un-shit the bed and each ’solution’ may be worse the rest.

I’m happy with the reduction in violence that has come from paying off the Sunni tribes but I have deep reservations that this is going to haunt us the same way that using religious warriors in Afghanistan was a mistake of historical proportions.

Now we are told that Iraq will require outside security through 2018! Seriously, what does a ‘prediction’ like that even mean? All I know is that the US shouldn’t be tied down with over one hundred thousand troops in Iraq preventing us from necessary military action for a generation. How do we prevent that? I’d say we set up a timetable for withdrawal. I think we’ll see that when troops are drawn down as the ’surge’ ends that the levels of violence will remain where it is. Thus, I think we could lower these levels even further though I don’t know how far or how fast.

More progress in Iraq is being reported, due to increased security from the surge. Of course, no banner headlines. The Lame Stream Media wouldn’t want to give the impression it was a good thing.
As for our troops remaining in Iraq for a decade or more, what’s the big deal, we still have troops in Germany and Japan, and it’s been over fifty years since they were first sent there.