Delusions of Iraq

Courtesy of the Independent.

In an article today, the Independent runs a strange fact-less article to claim that the Iraq war is - once again and forever - a fundamental failure.

"Iraq as a political project is finished," a senior government official was quoted as saying, adding: "The parties have moved to plan B." He said that the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties were now looking at ways to divide Iraq between them and to decide the future of Baghdad, where there is a mixed population. "There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into [Shia] east and [Sunni] west," he said.

First, I apologize for my disbelief in "senior government officials," but with all the false NSA stories, and other uncorroborated anonymous sources recently, I honestly have no reason to believe someone who will not give their name. Sorry - media credibility has been lost in my book.

Moving on, I have more reason to doubt this "senior official," in that their statement that Baghdad is the only "mixed population city" is completely false. Many of the cities in Iraq have mixed populations, and many live together peacefully. Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra all have diverse ethnic populations. To say that the country can be divided evenly, with Baghdad being the only "mixed" area clearly shows a lack of knowledge about the region, casting further doubt on the anonymous source. The Iraqis have a clear sense of national unity. Sectarian violence is being caused by outsiders, not the Iraqi people themselves (see: Iran).

Finally, a true statement:

The switch of American and British media attention to Lebanon and away from the rapidly deteriorating situation in Baghdad is much to the political benefit of Mr Blair and Mr Bush.

With the media fully deployed in Hezbollah terrorist propaganda-ing against Israel, the press has rarely enough time to ignore the positive stories coming from Iraq. Americans building schools and infrastructure, Iraqis participating in the democratic process many for the first time in their lives, and free Iraqis doing everything from voting to publishing pro-democracy newspapers have no time to be ignored with the war going on in Lebanon.

The Independent is right. The news media, its propaganda, it "anonymous sources," and its factual mistakes make it more difficult for us to succeed in Iraq.