Obama’s decision to close up shop in Iraq is already being sorely tested by the recent Coalition of the Evil-Doer’s massive terror attack, and of course is already being second-guessed by our home-grown warmongering reactionaries.  Of course if it were up to them, we would still be fighting in Vietnam.

Given that an overwhelming majority of Americans are pretty tired of hearing about a war that was only supposed to last a couple of weeks is now almost 9 years old, and that most of them probably don’t really care how many Iraqis die, the Coalition of the Evil-Doers will need to bump up the game and threaten the oil supply to keep around the American piñata – or in the words of Frank Herbert: “The Spice must flow!”

This line from the linked article made me chuckle:

“The dismantling of the Iraqi Army in the aftermath of the American invasion is now widely regarded as a mistake that stoked rebellion among hundreds of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers…”

Yeah, well I regarded it as a spectacularly dumbass idea the moment Bremer made in in May 2003.  Also, in case you’ve forgotten, Bremer was the dumbass who kept telling us that things were turning a corner in Iraq, and stability was always “just 6 months away.”  Well asshole, it’s now 2010, and the Sunnis are going all “Hurt Locker” on Shi’ite ass, and the corner sure as hell isn’t in sight.

Frankly, I was surprised to hear from Bremer at all – it’s hard to believe he is really either that stupid or delusional.  My guess is this is just the first of a series of salvos from the reactionaries trying to blame the Democrats for the inevitable failure of Shrubya’s Iraqi Fiasco, just like the wrong-wing blow-hards already do about Vietnam (“we won every battle…if only we had nuked Hanoi…blah blah blah”).

Then for a time, things seemed to stabilize.  Shrubya claimed it was his surge, Petraeus claimed credit for the military’s initiative to bribe the Sunni insurgents, and the reality-based community reckoned it was because most conflict neighborhoods had already been ‘cleansed’ and the US troops withdrew into their fortifications (removing easy targets).

Well it seems that minus the intra-Shi’ite political maneuverings, Groundhog Day appears to be making a comeback.  In today’s news, 3 more US soldiers were killed in a bombing, and suicide attacks are back to being regular news stories.

Swopa really called it when he mused that Obama had walked into a policy trap set for him by Shrubyian dead-enders in the military.

Obama really needs to take a lesson from Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon a few years back – otherwise, he could well be facing another several years of Groundhog Days as various Iraqi factions pull off stunts designed to keep us trapped in Quicksand.

*Update* UK PM Gordon Brown apparently doesn’t read the same news that Swopa & I read – apparently the British there was a ‘success!’ As a village idiot once said: “Heckuva job, Brownie!”

At least five Iraqis were killed and more than 20 wounded Wednesday when gunfire erupted during a demonstration in Kirkuk, where Kurds are bidding for more control of the oil-rich northern city.

Several thousand Arab and Turkmen protesters marched on the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of two main Kurdish factions, and surrounded the building, chanting “No to federalism, Kirkuk is Iraqi.”

Kirkuk’s chief of police said two people were killed in a burst of gunfire. Doctors said three more people died later at a nearby hospital and at least 20 were wounded.

Since the war that toppled Saddam, armed groups have looted and set ablaze several liquor stores in the once freewheeling city, where Shi’ite religious parties now wield power and seek to impose strict moral regulations, similar to Iran’s.

More than 400 liquor stores run by Christians, the only community allowed to sell alcohol under the former Baathist government, were forced to close in the immediate aftermath of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

. . . Iraqi Christians are terrified of armed Shi’ite groups, which have names like God’s Vengeance, God’s Party and the Islamic Bases Organization.

Their members roam the streets to chase mobsters, drug addicts and prostitutes, exacting their brand of what they call God’s law.

Juan Cole has a more extensive roundup of recent news from Basra, including uncontrolled smuggling of oil and illegal drugs that the British openly confess they don’t have the troops to deal with.