[strategofr]

"Thus, even as Al Qaeda was making a major military effort (for them), Iraqis turned out 60% to vote in January of 2005, then 63% in October of 2005 for their Constitution, then close to 70% in their December 2005 elections."

I don't think your analysis captures the current flavor of what is going on in Iraq. For three months in Iraq, the legislators have been deadlocked and failed to create a government. What led to this was that al-Sadr intimidated/influenced a number of legislators to vote for a very weak, inappropriate person to lead the government, someone the Shi'ite radicals wanted. This led to a deadlock, as so many people found this individual completely unacceptable.

This is not a good situation. According to a cover story in USA Today today or yesterday, the US has announced it is ending its attempt to rebuild Iraq and turning the effort over to the Iraqis. However, the Iraqis have no money with which to attempt this. Initially, I thought we said we were going to achieve a number of goals with the rebuilding effort. However, we have fallen far short.

Thing simply do not look good in Iraq at this time.

[Southack]

"Thing simply do not look good in Iraq at this time."

Nonsense. Things look great in Iraq. The Iraqi government is practicing politics rather than war (i.e. "civil war"). It doesn't matter if they form a certain government. What matters is that they jawbone their differences rather than shoot it out.

U.S. fatalities have fallen each month for the past 6 months (i.e. the October election/referendum).

Each Iraqi election has seen increased, not decreased voter turnout (from 60% in January 2005 to 70% in December).

Iraq's population, stagnant through the 1990's, has boomed from 24 million in 2003 to 27 million today.

Iraq's economy is booming. Iraq's hospitals and schools are the best-equipped and staffed that they've *ever* been.

Commerce flows on Iraqi streets and highways. Iraqis have more sanitary water and sewage disposal now than at any point in their History.

There's less overall violence in Iraq today than in Brazil, where police find 104 disposed bodies that have been shot dead each night before.

There are more fire-bombs each night in France than in Iraq.

The tipping point in Iraq came during their October referendum. Al Qaeda has since deployed their best assets out of Iraq into other areas. What's left in Iraq are some die-hards whose orders are to create as much damage as they can manage before they are killed off.

...but that sort of dying won't win a war for them.