WASHINGTON - Has anyone noticed that Iraq,

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Sam Hill

2008-03-11 14:06:11 UTC

Posted on Mar 10, 2008
By Eugene Robinson

WASHINGTONHas anyone noticed that Iraq, supposedly transformed into an
oasis of peace and tranquility by George W. Bushs troop surge, is growing
less peaceful and tranquil by the day?

The nations attention has been riveted by the presidential campaign, with
its compelling characters and its edge-of-your-seat story line. Iraq is
treated almost as a theoretical issue: What would happen there if Barack
Obama became president, as opposed to what would happen if Hillary Clinton
became president, as opposed to what would happen if John McCain became
president? There has been little debate about whats happening in Iraq right
now.

That seems likely to change.

The past several weeks have seen a recrudescence of the kind of horrifying,
spectacular violence that the Deciders surge was supposed to have ended.

Last Thursday, two massive bombs hit a shopping district in the
Shiite-dominated Karada neighborhood of Baghdad, killing 68 people and
injuring more than 120. That atrocity followed twin car-bomb explosions
earlier in the week that killed 24 people and wounded 56 elsewhere in the
city.

On Monday came what was described as the worst attack on U.S. forces in
months. According to Iraqi police, a suicide bomber approached an American
patrol in Baghdad and detonated his explosives, killing five soldiers and
injuring three others. U.S. military officials confirmed the deaths but did
not immediately give details of the incident.

Also on Monday, a female suicide bomber in Diyala province blew herself up
at the home of a Sunni clan leader who had been cooperating with U.S. forces
against al-Qaida. Sheik Thaeir Ghadhban al-Karkhi was killed, along with his
5-year-old niece, an adult cousin and a security guard.

Two days earlier, in an orchard near the banks of the Diyala River, Iraqi
police announced they had found a mass grave with the decomposed remains of
between 50 and 100 people, some of them children. It was unclear who the
victims were, or who had killed them.

When the Bush administration celebrates a 60 percent reduction in overall
violence in Iraq, its easy to forget that this is compared with June 2007,
when the sectarian civil war was raging and bombings with scores of victims
were a regular occurrence. The surge managed only to reduce the level of
violence from apocalyptic to agonizingand now even those gains seem to be
slipping.

Bushs surge was designed to give the Iraqi government the necessary
breathing space for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to reach vital compromises.
President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki showed their
gratitude earlier this month by rolling out the red carpet, literally, for
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Bushs Middle East policy is designed largely to blunt the influence of
Iran, which seeks a dominant role in the region. So it must have been
galling to the White House to watch as Ahmadinejad swept into Baghdad in a
ceremonial motorcade and toured the city with great fanfare. Never one to
miss a chance to stick in the needle, Ahmadinejad questioned the motives of
those who visit this country in a stealth manner.

He was referring to the fact that Bush has to fly unannounced into Iraq and
can stay only for a few hours. It would be far too dangerous to let citizens
know in advance that their liberator was coming to see to their welfare.

So violence seems to be creeping back, the Iraqi government is showcasing
its developing friendship with Iran, and, oh yes, these achievements are
costing American taxpayers around $12 billion a month, according to a new
book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and co-author Linda
Bilmes. The authors estimate that by 2017, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
will cost the nation between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion.

The Congressional Budget Office projects a somewhat lower cost, estimating
that by 2017 the two wars will have consumed between $1.2 trillion and $1.7
trillion. Still, not what you would call chump change.

Im not aware of any educated guess at how much it might cost if the
occupation of Iraq were to last 100 years, as McCain has suggested.

It is unclear whether the recent increase in violence in Iraq is temporary
or the beginning of a new and tragic cycle. Its hard to imagine a return to
the level of carnage of a year ago, since by now many of Baghdads
neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed. But all of useven the
presidential candidateshad better pay attention.

Eugene Robinsons e-mail address is eugenerobinson(at)washpost.com.

Owl Cafe & Filling Station

2008-03-11 15:15:17 UTC