I think there is plenty of hope for Iraq.

 

The fact that there were so many people standing in a recruiting line outside a Baghdad police acedemy in the first place means there is plenty of hope.  I wonder, do these murder bombings at police stations deter other potential recruits from joing, or motivate more to join?  Anyway, at some point, hopefully soon, the Iraqis will have to pick up the weapons and fight Al Qaeda themselves, in mass, and that will put an end to the terrorists soon afterwards.

 

Of course you have to dig like mad to find recruiting statistics, if they can be found at all.  Most of the US and international press will not print anything that might make it look like things are coming together over there, at least not until Bush is out of office.  Then I suspect we'll start seeing good news, and credit given to Obama - but at least we'll see good news, I hope.  In fact I'm almost startled to hear anything about Iraq - we've heard nothing about Iraq since the Chosen One was - well - officially chosen - by the Democrats.  It was as if Iraq no longer existed, and instead we should be worried about Sarah Palin's shopping sprees.

 

For the record, I believe Bush is to blame for the current mess, and trying to blame anyone else is ridiculous.  Once the initial invasion was successfully completed, the occupation was botched by Rumsfeld & Company, and it went downhill from there.

 

However, arguing about that, or claiming Bush lied about the reasons to invade, are pointless in terms of solving the current problem.  We made a mess, and we have to clean it up.  And I suspect that Obama will back away from a quick withdrawl, or stated another way, I think a lot of mad libs are going to be mad at Obama for not pulling the troops out quickly.  The very fact that he kept Gates on as SecDef tells me that much.