Anbar Awakening successful because of local tribal leadership and American troops, but mostly American troops.
July 24th, 2008
This chicken & egg argument about the Surge vs the Anbar Awakening, and how this is a major McCain gaffe is truly bizarre. No matter how desperately the Obama camp wants to steal this issue from McCain–and no matter how screechy the Obama fanboi sounds in the MSNBC message board–it is simply not factual to say the Awakening happened without American involvement! Technically, it may have happened before the first Surge brigades set foot in Anbar, but guess what? The tribal sheiks that provided momentum in the early, dark days of the Awakening were already working with American troops.
Pivot Pelosi
May 29th, 2008
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Crazy Aunt Pelosi may be on to something.
In an interview yesterday with the San Francisco Chronicle, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed the U.S. troop surge failed to accomplish its goal. She then partially credited the success of the troop surge to “the goodwill of the Iranians,” claiming that they were responsible for ending violence in the southern city of Basra.
Asked if she saw any evidence of the surge’s positive impact on her May 17 trip to Iraq she responded:
” Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.”
This may not be as stupid as it sounds (and it sounds really stupid). If Tehran has been so accomodating towards ending the violence, there must be a reason.
Could it be that they were faced with a resolute adversary in Maliki? Nope.
Could it be that the hand of Iranian interference was much too visible for successful tactical operations against the Coalition? Nope.
Hadn’t she and other democratics been complaining of unwelcome American sabre rattling towards Iran over the last two years? Yes, they were.
Pelosi is tacitly admitting (without any sense of irony, of course) that the American strategy of isolating fat little Shiite clerics warlords and taking a strong, if not outright forceful, stance against an unshaven, apocalyptical buffoon is sometimes the right approach.