WaPo: US Lowering Sights on Iraq (NOW They Tell Us)

From this morning's WaPo, a story that conflicts me greatly:

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

I'm not sure whether to be relieved that someone is indeed in touch with reality in the White House, even if they can't say so publicly--or outraged that they appear to have understood expectations were unreasonable, but have pitched them as viable goals for so long. The depth of their misunderstanding and shaded belief structure is astonishing, yet they're only "gradually" coming to the realization that it was pie in the sky from the start.

The article is revealing, but it's also a major beg of the question, one that asks:  now that you know, what do you plan to do? Apparently, manage it politically and keep hoping nothing really, REALLY bad happens. This is particularly disturbing, IMO:

The goal now is to ensure a constitution that can be easily amended later so Iraq can grow into a democracy, U.S. officials say.

Meaning: the heck with democracy and federalism; let's just wave some paper and call it a goal met. If Islamic law and religiously divided province-states, with a back door to change it later when Democracy Man arrives to save the day, are all that can get signed by The Deadline that's good enough for us. Freedom is on the shuffle!

Update 3pm:  Donklephant is similarly conflicted.

--TJ

Comments

[darryl]

Nice post, TJ. This seems to be the closest the Bush Administration has ever come to admitting failure.

So what did we get for our $200 million? We didn't find the WMD, we didn't get cheap oil, we didn't win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, we didn't get our model democracy in Iraq, and we didn't get a "Little America" to serve as an example for the Middle East.

This could only be worse if Sadaam Hussein were to be elected to some high office. . . .

[Torrid]

don't forget we got something new to stick on our bumpers!