"Some of it will be infrastructure that is being worked, some of it is local security for neighborhoods, some of it is markets reopening," said a senior military official in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing military tactics.

Military officers said they understood that any report that key goals had not been met would add to congressional Democrats' skepticism. But some counterinsurgency advisors to Petraeus have argued that it was never realistic to expect that Iraqis would reach agreement on some of their most divisive issues after just a few months of the American troop buildup.


So, the big benchmarks Bush finally gave down and agreed to pretend to support, until he doesn't want to support them anymore, were never supportable to begin with. 

Which means that the whole idea of a central government in Baghdad being stabilized by a massive input of more American forces made no sense in the first place, because the government can't do what it's being asked to do anyway. 

Which means the whole premise for the entire escalation was, well, bullsh**.

But it's okay--REALLY--because the guy who thought up this whole grand scheme in the first place, the plan that has completely disrupted and damn near unraveled the United States military, paralyzed the Congress so that all they could do or talk about for six long months was the war-funding bill, and turned a war-worn-out public bitter and mean as an election season heats up--well, he's on-board with this REDEFINING thing:


Frederick W. Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and early advocate of the troop buildup, said the military would have few major political accomplishments to report by September.

"I think the political progress will be mostly of this local variety," said Kagan, who recently visited Iraq and met with American commanders.


Oh, God, I don't know about you, but I feel so much better now that Fred is on board!  After all, he's got the president's ear.  Not the Iraq Study Group or polls showing 70% of the American people wanting this thing to end, and not the majority of the U.S. Congress, but Fred Kagan.  He's the man with the plan.

But the plan keeps changing.  And our reasons for changing the plan keep changing.  And they all sound so darn REASONABLE until, well, they change again.  It's hard for a lying bunch of bastards to keep up with the bullsh** spin-machine:


The push for smaller, more local deals represents a significant shift for the Bush administration, which has emphasized that security in Baghdad needed to be the top priority in order to allow the central government to make progress toward national political reconciliation. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have pressured Iraqi political leaders to reach key agreements by the end of summer.

But Gates last week said U.S. officials may have over-emphasized the importance of Iraq's central government.

"One of the concerns that I've had," Gates said, "was whether we had focused too much on central government construction in both Iraq and Afghanistan and not enough on the cultural and historical, provincial, tribal and other entities that have played an important role in the history of both countries."

The senior military officer in Baghdad said the new command has realized that there will be no quick national-level deal on the key issues.

"You are talking about Sunnis who had power and Shiites who have power forgetting about what happened over the last 30 years," said the officer. "How easy is that going to be?"


You know, I would say DUH right now, since sooo many of us out here in the ignored and overlooked hinterlands have been saying the same thing for MONTHS, but I don't want to belabor the obvious.

The thing is--and this is always the central tragedy of this useless administration and their worthless war plans:

What Gates and the military are talking about here ARE small but significant steps that can make a big difference IN SOME CASES. 

I would be the first to congratulate the Marines and Army guys out in the Anbar province, who have managed to persuade tribal sheiks to fight back against the al-Qaeda extremists who have been blowing up their mosques and marketplaces.  Iraqi police and army recruits have quadrupled with the support of the sheiks, and locals are more willing to cooperate with the Americans and provide tips that can help track down bomb-making factories and weapons caches.

I would never do anything to take away from their successes in the Anbar.  My son and my nephew fought hard in that godforsaken sector of a barren country, and I would like to hope that it counted for something.

Kagan points to that so-far-success-story as proof that, WOW, now ALL  the sheiks in Iraq are going to hurry up and join the Anbar Success Club--but AS USUAL, it's not that simple. 

For one thing, every sheik who speaks out against al-Qaeda winds up eventually getting assassinated.  People are living in deep fear out there, and Marines are still dying in the Anbar.  And that is the Anbar.  You can't necessarily extrapolate from tribe to tribe in that country and assume that the Diyala will follow along in line swiftly, as Kagan seems to think.

Each sect is different, each tribe, each geographic area of the country, each ancient rivalry.  And mixed areas are explosive and unmanageable--Baghdad, for instance, can't even claim tribal sheiks to put forth as leaders because so many of its population has fled or otherwise been in flux.  Even Muqtada al-Sadr can't keep all his people in line.

Military commanders are offering to arm tribes that wish to cooperate with them, and if they don't want to cooperate, they get harrassed and arrested and whatnot.  All on the local level.  THAT'S the new plan.

And that's fine, for now.  But how long before those arms start being used against our own troops?  It's already happening.  In a recent two-hour battle in Sadr City between American troops and Iraqi army troops against militant Sadrists, aereal surveillance later proved that a significant number of IRAQI ARMY TROOPS were HANDING OFF WEAPONS TO THE SADRISTS.

During the battle.  To be used against Americans.  You can read about it in the New York Times, where soldiers who fought in that battle now believe this whole war is bullsh**:  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/28/world/middleeast/28delta.html?th=&emc-th&page


You can lower expectations and redefine success all you want to.  You can point to all these well-trained, well-armed Iraqi army troops and so forth.  You can point to "pockets" of success.

But the bottom line is that ANY success in this war has always been ephemeral, a shimmering mirage on the horizon that looks so very much like cool, sweet water.

Until you drive a little further down the road and find desert.

Or a bomb cleverly hidden and ready to blow you to the next fake oasis.