Remember that powerful moment in The Wizard of Oz, when, after all their battles and struggles and adventures, and after getting rid of the Wicked Witch of the West, and finally making their way to the Emerald City--

Remember how big-eyed and overwhelmed and awed Dorothy and the Lion and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man were when they finally were allowed in to see the great and powerful Oz--

And they made their modest requests, you know, a heart and a brain and courage and a trip home for Dorothy--

Only to discover, to their HORROR, that the great and powerful Oz did not, in fact, exist?

He was nobody, in fact, but a little man behind a curtain, pulling the levers and flipping the switches that were put in place in order to maintain the ILLUSION that there really WAS a great and powerful Oz and that he really DID have the power to grant you your heart's desire.

Remember Dorothy's despair?  How she feared she would never, ever get to go home?


"It is time for a full appraisal of the realities in Iraq...These realities are very disturbing and it can no longer be assumed that Iraq will ultimately survive as a united entity...The governments of the U.S. and the U.K., and the wider international community, continue to struggle with their analysis of Iraq...This analytical failing has led to the pursuit of strategies that suit ideal depictions of how Iraq SHOULD look, but are often unrepresentative of the current situation."
--"Accepting Realities in Iraq," report released by the Royal Institute for International Affairs (known as Chatham House) and the University of Exeter, by Gareth Stanfield, Associate Fellow of the Middle East Programme at Chatham House, Thursday, May 17, 2007

"Progress is being made...The country has stepped back from the abyss, sectarian violence in the country is not as widespread as it was a year ago...As devastating as the...suicide attacks is, that does not in my mind suggest the failing of the state or the society."
--Response to the report by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker

" It's a known fact that while U.S. soldiers do occasionally rape 15-year olds...they are still infinitely more trustworthy than any Iraqi soldier from anywhere.  When an American soldier knocks on your door for a search, you go 'oh, thank god' but when Iraqis do the same, you are instantly on your toes.  Forget about all those Iraqis and Arab bloggers who live outside or have never been in there recently; they don't know what it is like.

"Iraq is dead--we are living in a newfound, and very real, age of sect."
--A young Iraqi blogger, known as "Iraqi Konfused Kid," quoted by Stansfield in the report


Yeah, well, you can always tell we're back in the Emerald City, boys and girls, when AS SOON as a major study is released that has been put together by a highly reputable and learned think-tank--THE VERY DAY that it is made public--

Why, that little man behind the curtain starts furiously pulling on levers and flipping switches so that, when the press puts out the story, it does two things:

(1)  It buries the lede.  Though it may have a catchy title, like the Washington Post's, "60 Die in Iraq; Study Warns of Collapse," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR2007051702112) or the BBC's "War-Torn Iraq Facing Collapse," (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1834989/) --The biggest most destructive news is buried several paragraphs down, and

(2)  Immediately, like a form of embroidery, tacking lace on at the top of the article and at the bottom and threaded delicately throughout--are instant commentary by top officials of the United States and British governments.

In other words, the talking heads could not even wait ONE DAY for the report to be released before they are ON IT, DUDE--spinning spinning spinning just like the little man behind the curtain.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, they say.

And, the thing is, if you are reading rapidly, the way many of us do, scanning through a piece, I guarantee it is very easy to confuse the statements made by the administration's talking-heads and the guy who actually wrote the report.

So that, if you are in a hurry, you might actually think that his conclusions were that, well, things are bad, but not THAT bad and that progress is, indeed, being made.

I'm not ready to accuse the journalists who are themselves in a hurry when writing up their reports, but in their rush to present both sides, they do tend to blur the issue so that the essential point of the report somehow gets buried or blurred.

Once that has been accomplished by the Confusers, then, the minions are dispatched.

Immediately, when you read through reader comments to those same stories, what do you hear?  Why, you hear everyday folks like you and me making interesting comments like how the institution, you know, the Royal Institute for International Affairs known as Chatham House, is "just another liberal think-tank, wringing their hands."

Uh-huh.

The fact that the report is webbed throughout with documentation and footnotes is irrelevant because, basically NOBODY READ IT ANYWAY.

Not the reporters, who didn't want to take the time.  They just skimmed the Chatham House press release for the high points and then sought out rebuttals from the talking heads.

And not the commenters, who are merely commenting on the articles written by the reporters, who didn't read the report either.  (Commenters who may or may not work for the government.)  They're just attacking.  You know.  The way they do.

But if they DID bother to read it--as I did--they might start wringing their own hands.

Now, I'm having problems with my brand-new high-speed connection and must wait a couple days for a technician to make it out to our rural home, (which means I'm back to dial-up and 19k)--and it's late as I post this, but I will provide a complete analysis as soon as I've had a chance to carefully read through all 12 pages.  (Not everybody has the time to do so.  I do.)

Hopefully, I'll be able to post an update tomorrow.  Or, uh, later today, since it's past midnight now.

But in the meantime, I will say that the most important point that I take away from Dr. Stansfield's painstaking research and careful writing and knowledgable study is that this is not A civil war but SEVERAL CIVIL WARS, as he puts it--he calls it "cross-cutting conflicts"--and he breaks it down, too, from Shia on Shia violence to Sunni on Sunni to Shia on Sunni to this tribe and that sect and this tribe and that one with the Americans and Brits caught in the crossfire.

He also makes a very sober assessment of the fact that the Iraqi government itself really has no control over any of this--not really.  That in truth--TRUTH not WISHFUL THINKING--they have already lost vast parts of the country.

And that, even if you COULD get the various sects into one room--who would speak for each one?  And who would listen to them?

And would they listen to each other?

I have other documents I've scared up to back up what Dr. Stansfield is saying, and I will get into all of it tomorrow, er, today, so bear with me in the meantime. 

And yes, he does offer some suggestions for how to deal with the fact that THERE IS NO OZ--HE'S JUST A MAN BEHIND A CURTAIN, SPINNING FURIOUSLY.

The Iraqis, he says, must come up with Iraqi solutions.

And he makes some interesting conclusions on how they can do this.

If you've got the time and would like to read the report in its entirety--They say it costs 5 pounds but you can get it free on the Internet--here is the link:  http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/viewdocument.php?documentid=8685

If you have trouble with my link, simply google Chatham House and type in "Accepting Realities in Iraq" in their search-box. 

More later.