When Defense Secretary Gates told the Iraqis last week that they had to get serious about reconciliation, who knew he meant reconciliation between al Maliki's government and the Pentagon?
Once again, in another painful demonstration of the impossibility of the American mission, al Maliki countermands the US military's security plan, this time, for a three mile long wall meant to protect a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad from Shiite thugs. You will recall he also ordered American troops last fall to pull down roadblocks around Sadr City when it pissed off Muqtada al-Sadr.
No matter the intention, it was a no brainer that the Sunnis would feel they were being caged in by a wall. It's also a no brainer that al Maliki needs the support of other Arab nations, which are mostly led by Sunnis. So is it a coincidence that while in Egypt, meeting with members of the Arab League, al Maliki tells the Americans to stand down on the wall building project?
Speaking of standing down, remember "When the Iraqi army stands up, we'll stand down"? Sure you do. It was the strategy of the United States since 2005. Bush said it repeatedly. So did Rummy and the generals. They even gave us progress reports, none of them true, about the number of Iraqi divisions who were ready to stand up, as it were, and take over for American troops.
Yeah, well, never mind. The Pentagon's policy has quietly "shifted," according to an under-noticed but important story by the McClatchy news service. (I see Cenk has noted it as well).
"Training Iraqi troops is no longer the focus of US policy," it said. The Abizaid/Casey strategy of transitioning from American troops to Iraqis has been ditched in favor of American troops securing the country, "defeating the insurgents" and sectarian trouble makers.
In other words, getting in the middle of the civil war, which killed dozens of Iraqi civilians and three American soldiers over the weekend.
Gates didn't even mention training Iraqi soldiers when he was in Iraq Thursday to warn al Maliki that the clock is ticking. You see, it's ok for Gates to threaten the Iraqis that America's patience is running out, and that he and Petraeus will be evaluating the situation this summer to see whether to end the surge or keep the soldiers there. It's okay for Gates (and others in the administration) to strongly suggest that if they don't make political progress by June 30, including a plan for sharing oil profits and allowing Saddam era Baathists back into government, bad things could happen to the al Maliki government. (Like, according to al Malilki, he could be out.)
But it's definitely not okay for Democrats to essentially prove Gates is correct about the clock ticking by putting a withdrawal timetable in the Iraq funding bill. That would be undermining the troops.
For his part, showing that he approves of at least one of the ways the Bush government operates, al Maliki is denying that there is a civil war in Iraq. Maybe he gets his "progress" reports from Cheney.
If you can read this story, about the torture and murder of one of Iraq's most prominent television news anchors, a Shiite who was killed because she refused to be pushed out of her home, and conclude that there isn't a civil war in Iraq, there's a press secretary job waiting for you somewhere in the Bush administration.