WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
September 8, 2007
:

When the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr called last week for a freeze on his Mahdi Army's operations, it might have been tempting to take it as a positive step toward reducing violence and promoting stability in Iraq. But even if his directive is heeded by most components of the far-from-unitary Mahdi Army, any such timeout will only be a tactical pause to let Sadr's forces regroup.

It hardly portends a transformation of the basic situation in Iraq.

Iraq is a smashed state. Indeed, the government housed in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone is practically irrelevant to the multifarious power struggles fought in the streets by disparate militias and gangs. ... Because Iraq has been sundered into separate fiefdoms and has descended into Somalia-style warlordism, there is no identifiable enemy over whom President Bush may claim victory. There are now many different wars in Iraq, but none that America can win.

The Boston Globe

The Bush administration made a virtual religion of the belief that if you act boldly, others will follow in your wake. That certainly proved to be the case with Karl Rove, for a time. But for all the fascination with what Rove was doing and thinking, little attention was given to whether it was working and why. This neglect encompasses many people, though one person with far greater consequences than all the others. In the end, the verdict on George W. Bush may be as simple as this: He never questioned the big, booming voice of Oz, so he never saw the little man behind the curtain.

Joshua Green, The Atlantic