CT Progressive

Ned Lamont celebrates Iraqi Independence Day with an editorial on the Huffington Post (found via Sonoma County DFA):

It’s hard to believe, but today finally marks the beginning of the end of America’s front line military role in Iraq.

Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki has named today, June 30th, 2009, an “Iraqi Independence Day” of sorts, a national holiday which he said would celebrate the “great victory” of Iraqis who have repulsed the foreign occupiers (aka their American liberators). With fireworks filling the night skies over Baghdad, all American combat troops are moving out of the major cities and towns, and, ready or not, the Iraqi military and police are taking charge - with plenty of American trainers in tow just in case.

It’s great news that we’re finally leaving the cities – and surprising that it hasn’t been more widely remarked upon elsewhere in the world o’blogs. Even Ned, though, can’t resist a little bit of backseat diplomacy:

As the violence there has subsided, sadly the warring factions have not used the lull to make the tough political compromises necessary for lasting stability. Prime Minister Al Maliki has still not been able to draw up a just division of the oil revenues between Kurds and Sunnis and Shias, he has commandeered the military and been loath to include Sunnis in a national force, and he has been slower still to pay the Sunni Awakening councils whose allegiances could flip again.

That may be true, but that’s a domestic problem – just like we worry about paying off the right religious groups (via the Office of Faith Based Initiatives) and dividing up Federal spending equitably between our different states.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 2:43 pm and is filed under In the News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.