It’s easy to forget, and most news accounts seem to overlook it, but the whole point of the White House “surge” policy was to provide Iraqis with the proverbial breathing room necessary to finally make some political progress. Bush has said repeatedly that he believes Iraq’s politics cannot be changed until there’s improved security conditions, which is why he increased troop numbers and extended deployments.
With that in mind, and with political progress at a standstill, Iraq’s political leaders walked away from Parliament today for a month-long break.
Iraq’s parliament went into summer recess for a month on Monday after political leaders failed to agree on a series of laws that Washington sees as crucial to stabilizing the country.
Lawmakers said the government had yet to present them with any of the laws. The parliament had earlier signaled its intention to go into recess in August after cutting short its summer break that normally starts in July.
“We do not have anything to discuss in the parliament, no laws or constitutional amendments, nothing from the government. Differences between the political factions have delayed the laws,” Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman told Reuters.
Reuters got a gem of a quote from Gareth Stansfield, an analyst at Chatham House, a leading British think-tank: “Bush cannot realistically go to Congress and say he has to keep U.S. troops there because the Iraqi government is doing a good job — because the government is largely absent. It places him in a very difficult predicament.”
In our dreams. Stansfield is under the impression that reality has some bearing on White House policy, and that Bush considers shame and credibility important when shaping Iraq policy. If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the last five years, it’s that Bush “cannot realistically” do all kinds of things he ends up doing anyway.
Post Script: By the way, a variety of far-right blogs are touting the Iraq soccer team’s success over the weekend in the Asian Cup tournament. Iraq was apparently not expected to do well — bombings reportedly interfered with team practices more than once — but they surprised everyone by winning the championship after defeating a heavily-favored Saudi team.
Sports may seem like an unimportant diversion given crisis conditions in Iraq, but the Asian Cup was a rare bit of cultural good news for a people who desperately needed some.
On the other hand, if the U.S. was hoping for a brief political victory as a result of the game, it doesn’t appear to be working out.
Iraq’s 1-0 victory over Saudi Arabia on a 71st-minute header by captain Younis Mahmoud was an inspirational triumph for a team whose players straddle bitter and violent ethnic divides. After the game, Mahmoud called for the United States to withdraw its troops from his nation.
“I want America to go out,” he said. “Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but out. I wish the American people didn’t invade Iraq and, hopefully, it will be over soon.”
As for Baghdad, shortly after celebrations broke out in Iraq’s capital, a bus bomb killed six.