Much like columnist Dennis Byrne, the Tribune editorial board is displeased that the recent security gains in Iraq are not being covered by the national press:
There are tremendously encouraging signs, though, that Iraq has come through the worst. The breathtaking violence that rocked the country after the U.S.-led invasion is ebbing. A government once derided as incapable of securing Iraq has an increasingly effective military. It enjoys more cooperation from the different ethnic and religious groups. Hotbeds of Sunni and Al Qaeda resistance have been defanged—and now rely on Iraqi forces to keep a relative peace. This nation's decisions about its commitment in Iraq need to acknowledge these specific realities:
Although the Tribune treated yesterday's massive bombing in Baghdad as a blip on the radar, the security gains it cites are indisputable and valuable. But while violence is down, the root causes of the war are still unresolved. As the AP notes in an article published Monday, the power struggle between Sunnis and Shiites remains fierce, political progress has lagged, and U.S. troops have suppressed violence in Baghdad in large part because rival communities are separated by a series of large blast walls. "Fear and distrust" of fellow countrymen and American forces still lurks in every quarter.
Moreover, the relative calm could break at any moment. While the Iraqi military has allowed the government to gain confidence, that support will be undermined if it doesn't deliver essential services and jobs to its citizenry and rebuild its broken infrastructure -- areas in which many of the militias have been far more effective. This will be tough to do as corruption and bureaucratic chaos have swallowed up most of the nation's windfall oil profits.
The Tribune editorial highlights a major problem with debate over the war -- what The Nation editors recently described as "this surreal, Groundhog Day-like eternal recurrence: things are better but not better enough, stabilizing but not yet stable, so we must stay." Indeed, war supporters continue to push back the goalposts of success, prolonging this failed imperial project and subverting the will of both the American and Iraqi people, who overwhelmingly want the American occupation to end.
By all means, let's talk about the war this election season. But let's evaluate it frankly and in context.
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