An Un-Civil War

An Un-Civil War

November 30, 2006

In June, President Bush met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and told the Iraqi leader, “I'm impressed by the strength of your character and your desire to succeed. And I'm impressed by your strategy.” But in just five months, relations between Bush and Maliki have soured considerably. Maliki cancelled his originally scheduled meeting with Bush and Jordan's King Abdullah II yesterday, in the face of protests from radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's supporters. The scheduled meeting highlighted how little has progressed on Iraq since the June meeting, other than an increased number of casualties, increased public disapproval, increased sectarian violence, and increased consensus that the situation in Iraq is a civil war. The Iraq Study Group—which will release its findings on Dec. 6—is unlikely to recommend a specific timetable for redeployment. The Center for American Progress has a responsible Strategic Redeployment plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

• Top Bush administration officials are expressing doubt about Maliki. Publicly, the Bush administration has praised Maliki. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley on Tuesday told reporters that Maliki “is doing a lot of pushing himself” and that the “unity government is doing pretty well in a very difficult situation.” Privately, though, the White House and its right-wing allies are trying to shift public disapproval and criticism from Bush to the Iraqis.A classified Nov. 8 memo by Hadley said that despite “Maliki's reassuring words...the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action.”
  
  
• There is growing consensus that Iraq is embroiled in a civil war. The White House is increasingly isolated in its insistence that there is no civil war. The Los Angeles Times has been calling the situation in Iraq a “civil war” since October; NBC and The New York Times changed their policies to acknowledge the violent reality this week. While The Washington Post is refusing to call the situation a "civil war," some of its writers—including reporter Dana Priest and columnist David Ignatius—have said it's time to “stop the semantic games. This is a civil war.” Yesterday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said the war in Iraq “could be considered a civil war” and that if he were heading the State Department right now, he would recommend that the Bush administration adopt that language “in order to come to terms with the reality on the ground.”
  
  
• There is no end in sight for US military involvement in Iraq. The White House still refuses to set a timetable for redeployment out of Iraq, despite public support for such a plan. Today, The New York Times is reporting that the Iraq Study Group's final recommendations to be released next Wednesday “will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal.” Pentagon officials are developing plans to send four more battalions—including units who have already done tours of duty in Iraq—to Baghdad next year, where U.S. efforts to quash the rising violence have failed. The Pentagon is also putting together an emergency war spending request totaling $127 billion to $150 billion, a “proposal that could be larger and broader than any since the Sept. 11 attacks.”