U.S. lowers bar for political success in Iraq.
By on Nov 24th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
U.S. lowers bar for political success in Iraq.
The New York Times reports:
With American military successes outpacing political gains in Iraq, the Bush administration has lowered its expectation of quickly achieving major steps toward unifying the country, including passage of a long-stymied plan to share oil revenues and holding regional elections. [...]
There have been signs that American influence over Iraqi politics is dwindling after the recent improvements in security — which remain incomplete, as shown by a deadly bombing Friday in Baghdad. While Bush officials once said they aimed to secure “reconciliation” among Iraq’s deeply divided religious, ethnic and sectarian groups, some officials now refer to their goal as “accommodation.”
View Most Popular
Advertisement
What We're About
What We're Fighting For
What We're Fighting Against
Featured
Subscribe to the Progress Report
Topic CloudView topics sorted by popularity
Afghanistan
Bachmann
Beck
Boehner
Bush
Cheney
Civil Rights
Congress
Corporate Ethics
Dobbs
Economy
Election
Energy
Environment
Ethics
Fox News
Gingrich
Global Warming
Hannity
Health Care
Immigration
International Relations
Iraq
Justice
Kristol
LGBT
Lieberman
Limbaugh
Maddow
McCain
Media
Military
Obama
Palin
Pelosi
Public Plan
Race
Radical Right
Religion
Sports
Steele
Stimulus
Tea Parties
Technology
Women's Rights
Visit Our Affiliated Sites
Reports
In-depth studies on select topics
Got a hot tip?
Have a hot news tip? We'd love to hear from you. Use the form below to send us the latest.
ArchivesBlog Roll
So the Iraqis are not as stupid as our homegrown Republicans? No wonder we had to bomb the life out of them.
November 24th, 2007 at 9:30 pmTake the troops out and just buy the oil like everybody else.
November 24th, 2007 at 9:35 pmThese clowns don’t have a plan, and never did. They are feckless boobs.
November 24th, 2007 at 9:38 pmIt’s not a matter of buying the oil.
Control of the oil fields is the power to not pump the oil out of the ground.
It is the power to choose to whom to sell the oil.
It is the key to global domination through control of the world’s energy supply.
That’s the end game here .. the “New American Century.”
November 24th, 2007 at 9:40 pmIf you never mention a clear goal before starting, no one can ever say you didn’t make it.
November 24th, 2007 at 9:49 pmStay the course, its wider!
November 24th, 2007 at 9:50 pmNo worries…..there are plans for timely regime change at the most opportune moment….and for Republicans it means it will mess things up even worse….they can never lead to victory or common sense for that matter.
November 24th, 2007 at 9:55 pmThe Bush-Cheney oilocracy’s goal for Iraqi is oil is to wrest control from of Iraq’s oil from the Iraqi government’s hands and put it into the hands of big oil! The better to have the whole pie for big oil
November 24th, 2007 at 10:02 pmHow many times has the administration claimed an unannounced, unpredicted, or incidental “milestone” is “progress”? How many times have they lowered the bar? Changed “the plan” to reflect past events?
At the rate they’re going they will be calling sand in the desert “signs of increasing success”.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:10 pmGOP 1: My V8 is only running on seven cylinders.
GOP 2: Just call it a V6.
GOP 1: My V6 is running on seven cylinders.
GOP 2: Now thats what I call success.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:17 pmGOP 1: I cant lower the bar any further
GOP 2: Dig a hole under it.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:19 pmThe soft bigotry of lowered expectations…..
November 24th, 2007 at 10:31 pmIt’s not a matter of buying the oil.
Control of the oil fields is the power to not pump the oil out of the ground.
It is the power to choose to whom to sell the oil.
It is the key to global domination through control of the world’s energy supply.
That’s the end game here .. the “New American Century.â€
Comment by Briseadh na Faire — November 24, 2007 @ 9:40 pm
November 24th, 2007 at 10:34 pmexactly how I see it….
If the neocons sincerely wanted a stable Iraq, after Mission Accomplished , they would have let the Irqi people re build their own country as they asked and begged to do…. said they could do it pennies on the dollar. But no, – we had to keep the chaos going … for 4 years now?…and eventually gain, as you put it, control…
l
And I guess “Mission Accomplished” language is certainly out the window too.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:39 pmThe Big Lie: “including passage of a long-stymied plan to share oil revenues” Iraqi’s will be sharing 20% of the revenue…after Big Oil starts declaring a profit.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:44 pmIraq = Neocon failure.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:49 pmLast I heard, Iraq was not going to sign that hideous oil deal….
November 24th, 2007 at 11:01 pmThis whole event from WMD to the change of reasons why we massacred that innocent country, to the surge is working are total lies to keep the public distracted while our treasury is robbed and MIC makes a ton of money. Some fools still talk up the surge as if there is a ray of hope all will be over. Don’t they get it? Just another lie con job keeping the masses distracted.
‘reconciliation’, ‘accomodation’, how about they just don’t kill each other in the parliamentary meeting room?
November 24th, 2007 at 11:16 pmHow low well Bush go until he reaches the bottom. Yes when it is seen as a complete lost the White House will have their paid Journalist report that it was Bill Clinton’s fault. Yes for the past 7 years all of the GOP and White House failures have been blamed on
November 24th, 2007 at 11:38 pmBill Clinton. What’s funny is the American people buy that story hook line and sinker.
Lowering the bar to only include the 3 items where some progress has been made sounds about right for the Bush administration. The other 15 didn’t mean anything after all to the Bush administration.
But didn’t the law Bush signed spell out the benchmarks. How about holding Bush accountable for the whole package? Does Congress really have no say in this?
The idiocy continues.
November 24th, 2007 at 11:57 pmRemember the purple fingers? The noble cause that so many have died and sacrificed for? According to the US State Dept.: Shiite-Led Government Larger Threat than al-Qaida:
report: Senior military commanders now portray the intransigence of Iraq’s Shiite dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaida terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias. Several U.S. military officials have expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government’s failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. A window of opportunity has opened for the government to reach out to its former foes, said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of day-to-day U.S. military operations in Iraq, but “it’s unclear how long that window is going to be open.”
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/95643.pdf (p.9)
November 25th, 2007 at 1:00 amBush does not want quick reconciliation, this would mean a quick withdrawal of US troops would be called for. Accomodation is just a buzzword for “staying the course”, since it will only last as long as we have our troops there, so the argument will go.
In other words, accomodation is preferred to reconciliation since it is the justification needed for keeping US troops in Iraq for decades. It’s an old tactic called “Divide and Rule”. Keep them divided in a state of permanent accomodation short of reconciliation, where your presence is required to keep them from fighting each other, or reconciling with each other. This allows you to occupy them and loot their land for as long as the suckers buy into it.
November 25th, 2007 at 1:09 amHey Bacon, darn good link, its what ive been saying all along, I emailed it to TP hopefully they will make that one its own thread…this myopic adiministration and its supporters are unable to fathom that power is gained and lost by means other than physical force..
November 25th, 2007 at 5:14 am>There have been signs that American
>influence over Iraqi politics is dwindling
because in Iraq, the almighty Dollah doesnt carry as much weight as the almighty Allah, which these buggers can’t seem to agree about..
November 25th, 2007 at 5:17 am[.....US lowers bar for political success in Iraq..]. Was there a bar to begin with ?!!
November 25th, 2007 at 9:48 amtarazan: To suggest that there ever was a “bar” for judging political success is to imply that there ever was a thoughtful “plan” at the outset. Bush appears to be incapable of anything even remotely resembling sound judgment and critical thought process so this headline becomes a moot point. There never was a bar because there never was a plan; without a plan, there never was a real “enemy” ever identified nor a war “objective”.
That’s precisely why this “highly illegal invasion” of a soverign country will haunt GWB for the rest of his natural life and well into his spiritual life. I certainly wouldn’t want to inhabit his body habitus or soul, that’s certain! And, if there is such a thing (and we know that there is) as “karma”, yikes!! The karmic debt which the Bush Family inherits will poison this genetic line for decades to come.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:13 amAnd that’s precisely why his neocon/fascist buddies are all foisting responsibility for this nightmare in Iraq back on Bush’s shoulders. They’re attempting to parse words by stating that the “attack” was successful but the “occupation” is a disaster. Richard Perle et al are attempting to divide the War into two separate and distinct segments which are indivisible of each other. Nice try, though, Neonazis! This WAR belongs to GWB, the GOP, and the Neocons exclusively.
You never enter into a war unless it’s a last alternative. You never enter into a war without a well-constructed plan for the initial attack as well as the continued occupation.
In Bush’s world, he tabulates the cost of the war and eliminates the cost of caring for our war disabled – accounting doesn’t work that way and neither does war planning.
This is BUSH’S BLOOD FOR OIL WAR and it will go down in history as being a total and unequivocal disaster.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:18 amThe reason why the US influence over the Iraqi government has declined is because the people in the Iraqi government (you know, the people we put there as our puppets) are corrupt to the core and are making big bucks off of their corruption. If there was any kind of reconciliation, they would have to give up their payoffs and other forms of corruption.
It’s time for the US government to say “mission accomplished” and come home. That way Bush can, in his fantasy world, think that he did something that was a success.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:51 am“U.S. lowers bar for political success in Iraq”
Again?
“U.S. lowers bar for political success in Afganistan”
Again?
Current position=Goal=Success=Victory(almost)
November 25th, 2007 at 12:00 pmThese clowns don’t have a plan, and never did. They are feckless boobs.
They’ve got a plan. The plan is a weak and compliant puppet regime, but not in Iraq.
The Iraq escapade is, take your pick, either the world’s most expensive campaign commercial, or a second American civil-war-by-proxy.
It is a war about what this country is, and means, and does.
Eliminating effective, organized domestic opposition in this country to the Glorious Revolution — not oil per se, not democracy, not WMD’s, not human rights, not even revenge for 9/11 — was the goal of the operation.
The opportunity to write the tax code, craft the regulatory environment, determine fiscal and monetary policy, and appoint the judges in this country deep into the new century would be worth nearly any expenditure of blood and treasure. The ability to deploy the vastly increased police powers of the unitary executive against opponents could make such a victory permanent.
A smart criminal buys out a security firm, or suborns the accountants.
A really smart criminal doesn’t rob banks, he simply writes larceny out of the statute books, or repeals the statute of fraud.
Cheney and company sought an opportunity to to do a Mulroney on the Democratic party, and they needed a war to do it. A war was necessary — this particular war was convenient.
It might still work. The Democrats don’t seem to be interested in stopping the process.
November 25th, 2007 at 12:22 pmHere, goal post, come here, be a good little goal post!
Here goal post, come to Bushie!
November 25th, 2007 at 12:41 pmPresident Bush defined victory in Iraq as:
By lowering the bar, aren’t we admitting defeat?
November 25th, 2007 at 12:45 pm“Lowering the bar” is an art form for the Bush Administration. It’s the only way GWB has ever achieved anything. He discovered early on the magic of lowered expectations.
November 25th, 2007 at 1:13 pmLowering the political bar AFTER his innumerable policy failures is a clear admission that the deaths and suffering of so many innocent human beings was senseless and futile. The point of human sacrifice in Iraq was to gain political stability. Wouldn’t it have been great if Bush had raised the bar on the value of human life BEFORE so many people had died as a direct result of HIS political failures?
November 25th, 2007 at 2:16 pmThat boils it down. Mission accomplished. Time to go looking for some more victories.
Funny thing but Congress mandated that the Bush administration provide testimony covering 18 benchmarks as a requirement of the legislation funding the surge. Partial success on 3 of those hardly satisfies the mandate of the legislation. As I recall, the last time the benchmarks were addressed they testified that there was partial success on 4 of them. This means that with the surge we are seeing less “progress” toward the benchmarks than before.
November 25th, 2007 at 5:30 pm