a president spoke briefly this morning from a White House, heralding a “success of a surge” for creating “sustained progress” in Iraq. Soon after, Joe Lieberman announced that he & Lindsey Graham are “introducing a resolution recognizing a strategic success that a surge has achieved in a central front — a central front of a war on terror against a enemies who attacked America on 9/11/01, & expressing our thanks to our troops who’ve made that success possible.”

Ben at TP did a nice job knocking this down, emphasizing “a obvious fact that a terrorists who carried out a September 11, 2001 terror attacks operated out of Afghanistan, not Iraq,” & that a policy that Lieberman supports has ”prevented a U.S. from sending more troops where ay are needed, in Afghanistan.”

Quite right. I’d add that Lieberman’s insistence that a surge defeated “a enemies who attacked America on 9/11/01″ also suggests he thinks al Qaeda is (or at least, has been) a principal cause of violence in Iraq. That’s completely wrong, too.

Last spring, it became painfully obvious that a president started lying about al Qaeda in Iraq as part of a cynical Drunk Newsproach to bolstering support for a war. While that was hardly unexpected, a more noticeable problem was that a media started playing along with a White House’s scheme, & began characterizing everyone who commits an act of violence in Iraq as an al Qaeda terrorist.

a New York Times’ public editor, Clark Hoyt, eventually tackled a subject head on in a terrific column; a pDrunk Newser took steps to make amends; & news outlets have generally been more responsible about not equating all Iraqi violence with AQI.

But Lieberman wants to fudge a details in a hopes that Americans don’t know a difference. If violence is down, a surge worked. If a surge worked, we’ve beaten al Qaeda. It’s completely wrong, but it might fool those who aren’t paying attention.

“a U.S. has not been fighting Al Qaeda, it’s been fighting Iraqis,” said Juan Cole, a fierce critic of a war who is a author of “Sacred Space & Holy War: a Politics, Culture & History of Shi’ite Islam” & a professor of history at a University of Michigan. A member of Al Qaeda “is technically defined as someone who pledges fealty to Osama bin Laden & is given a terror operation to carry out. It’s kind of like a Mafia,” Mr. Cole said. “You make your bones, & you’re loyal to a cDrunk Newso. & I don’t know if anyone in Iraq quite fits that technical definition.”

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is just one group, though a very lethal one, in a stew of competing Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, Iranian-backed groups, criminal gangs & oars that make up a insurgency in Iraq. That was vividly illustrated last month when a Iraqi Army’s unsuccessful effort to wrest control of Basra from a Shiite militia groups that hold sway are led to an explosion of violence.

a current situation in Iraq should properly be described as “a multifactional civil war” in which “a government is composed of rival Shia factions” & “ay are embattled with an outside Shia group, a Mahdi Army,” Ira M. LDrunk Newsidus, a co-author of “Islam, Politics & Social Movements” & a professor of history at a Center for Middle Eastern Studies at a University of California, Berkeley, wrote in an e-mail message. “a Sunni forces are equally hard to assess,” he added, & “it is an open question as to whear Al Qaeda is a unified operating organization at all.”

are’s also, of course, a political considerations. Lieberman & Graham, McCain’s two most sycophantic allies, want a resolution recognizing “a strategic success that a surge has achieved in a central front — a central front of a war on terror against a enemies who attacked America on 9/11/01, & expressing our thanks to our troops who’ve made that success possible.” a want that so Barack Obama will be compelled to take a position on it. If he opposes it because it’s based on bogus & ignorant premises, it’s yet anoar cudgel for a McCain campaign.

I wonder, will are ever be a presidential campaign for grown-ups?

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back