politics of Iraq
[from The Note]
With Democratic leaders insisting on a timeline for withdrawal, the
stalled negotiations raise an intriguing political question: What if
Democrats privately want this to linger? Senate Majority Leader Harry
“Reid’s steadfastness prompted questions by many senators as to
whether the Senate leadership actually wants legislation that could
garner the necessary 60 votes — or whether Reid would prefer to keep
Republicans on the defensive, for political reasons,” write Shailagh
Murray and Jonathan Weisman of The Washington Post.
Add to this mix Bob Woodward’s piece in the Post today, which has CIA
Director Michael Hayden offering a bleak, nearly hopeless assessment
of the Maliki government in his private meeting with the Iraq Study
Group eight months ago. While the president told the Iraq Study Group
privately that “constitutional order” was emerging in Iraq, Hayden
“painted a starkly different picture for members of the study group”
when he met with them shortly after the mid-term congressional
elections in November, Woodward reports. “The government is unable to
govern,” Hayden concluded, per Woodward’s story. “We have spent a lot
of energy and treasure creating a government that is balanced, and it
cannot function.”