Iraq: It's a Civil War

All of us are getting tired of the word games being played at the White House. The violence in Iraq over the last few months have been getting worse. But then, the violence was bad before it got worse.

Here's a story from CBS News about NBC News (yeah, I know, it's ironic):

NBC News and MSNBC broke away from the pack of mainstream media and decided to use the term "civil war" to describe current fighting in Iraq.

Over the weekend, the Los Angeles Times became one of the first newspapers to use the term "civil war" without a qualifier.

"Apparently the utter chaos and carnage of the past week has finally convinced some to use 'civil war' without apology," Editor & Publisher reported.

Early Monday morning, Matt Lauer on the "Today" show bluntly laid out NBC News' decision to freely use the term "civil war," although the White House has consistently rejected claims that Iraq's sectarian violence had deteriorated into a civil war.

"For the most part, news organizations like NBC hesitated to characterize it as such. After careful consideration, NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted and what is going on in Iraq can now be characterized as civil war," Lauer said.

There's nothing complicated about this. If lots of people on both sides are getting killed and everybody's upset, and thousands of people are fleeing the country or fleeing their region because of sectarian violence, it's called a civil war. Of course, it's difficult to inform the White House. For almost six years, the White House has been hermetically sealed off from the White House press room. Tony Snow's job isn't just to deny there's a civil war—his job is to deny everything. It would be worth sending a telegram to Bush but Western Union has closed it offices. It would be worth sending an e-mail but nobody at the White House reads them (is Bush even computer literate?). It would be worth sending a letter but the people who get them and toss them out don't even work at the White House. It would be worth making a phone call but you'll put on hold until the next election. Perhaps the first words of whatever report the Iraq Study Group writes is, "Accept reality: Iraq is a complete fiasco and civil war has been underway for almost a year." Just as it was with Hurricane Katrina, we have a president who insists on being the last to know.

Steve Soto of The Left Coaster has an excellent post today on all things Iraq (with a number of useful links):

Yesterday’s Times had a good piece on how the expectations for the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group have far outpaced what Baker and Hamilton may be able to achieve. There are several factors at play working against Baker here, the first being Bush’s unwillingness to be viewed as someone who needs to be rescued by “Jimmy”. The second problem is that unlike Baker’s earlier work on the international stage, the warring parties inside Iraq’s sectarian war may not be swayed by what James Baker says, unless he can personally deliver what they want. Since he can’t personally move al-Maliki or the “Office Boy” to take the steps necessary to move along towards a political solution, Baker’s report may not be the panacea many are expecting. It will be a waste of time if it doesn’t seriously consider a withdrawal option, which the Times says will not be in the report’s first draft, and the Pentagon is already undermining the report with its own plan to stay the course and add more troops. The Brits aren’t waiting around for us: they are going to significantly draw down their presence before the end of next year.

It's been almost three weeks since the American people sent a message to Bush that enough is enough. Part of that message is the belief by most Americans that it is time to disengage from Iraq in some kind of realistic manner. Firing Rumseld was a step in the right direction. But everything since then indicates that the president himself is not ready to change; and there is still the possibility he may start a third war. Bush has the option of salvaging some portion of his presidency in his last two years. So far, the signs are that Bush will simply hand off his fiasco to the next president. That's a foreign policy drift for two years that America cannot afford.