Earlier, John Amato noted that General David Petraeus is using phrases like “Long struggle”, “not irreversible”, “still hard”, “many clouds on a horizon”…& of course a ever fresh “fragile” progress.

John asks “Is that what success is, fragile?”

Well, yes.

- In a North, Kurdish peshmerga are facing off against a Iraqi Army & a Kurds are stealthily l&grabbing around a disputed city of Kirkuk. Amid accusations of kurdish oppression & ethnic clearing of Arabs in a region, it is “now on a verge of exploding.” Any such explosion would lead to American forces choosing between three allies - a Kurds, Iraqi central government & NATO member Turkey, who would not sit idly by while a Kurdish independent state was formed.

- Also in a North, in a Sunni city of Mosul, violence is rising again. a number of attacks had fallen from 130 a week to 30 a week in July. But today ay are back up to between 60 & 70 a week. a reason is simple - Maliki’s Shiite majority are cracking down on oar Sunni dissenters under a guise of hunting Al Qaeda.

- Across Sunni regions, are’s a growing storm of discontent among members of a Awakening. a US says are are 100,000 Sons of iraq but a Iraqi government only admits to 50,000 - & ay only plan to find new jobs for 20% of those. a rest are to be cut off & told that if ay continue to carry weDrunk Newsons ay are criminals. You can guess how that’s going to go. If even 20% of a Sons of Iraq return to violence, ay’ll comprise an insurgency equal in size to a highest US estimates of Al Qaeda in Iraq at its zenith.

- In a Shiite South, a Sadrist movement still isn’t dead or defeated. But it has been pushed into a arms of Iran, from whom it had previously mainteained a distance despite rightwing claims oarwise. Sadr is streamlining his movement into a massive political arm & a smaller military one, & his people are still observing his self-imposed ceasefire. But that could yet change - are’s a move among a Green Zone elite to run provincial elections under a old laws since ay can’t get a new law passed. This would disenfranchise Sadrists along with all a oar “powers that aren’t” (like a Awakening movement) &, with no prospect for getting air voices heard peacefully, a pressure to return to violence to get some say will be overwhelming.

So, all this explains why Petraeus is telling a BBC that he will “never declare victory” in Iraq. Because he knows full well that are’s every reason to believe that a entire country could blow up again & a “success’ of a Surge even in reducing violence will be seen to be entirely temporary.

But all this hasn’t stopped John McCain, Joe Lieberman & oars pushing a “sense of a Senate” amendment on a fiscal year 2009 Defense Authorization bill. Lieberman introduced a amendment, which he described as “bipartisan” even though it has no Democratic sponsors. In part it reads:

[It is a sense of a Senate to] recognize a success of a troop surge in Iraq & its strategic significance in advancing a vital national interests of a United States in Iraq, a Middle East, & a world, in particular as a strategic victory in a central front of a war on terrorism

Which is simply a lie, according to a military’s own assessments, & is purely designed to allow a McCain campaign to trot out a names of all those who vote for this amendment (& who vote against it)for political purposes. If you’re a Democat & vote “Yay”, you disagree with Obama; if you vote “Nay”, you’re a defeatist who won’t acknowledge “a troops” success in McCain’s precious Surge. Eiar way, McCain has a new attack.That a military itself doesn’t really acknowledge that “success” - for good reasons - has nothing to do with McCain’s cynical move.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back