Messy Week for Iraq

Above: Iraq Study Group

I must say I am glad I am just a BYU student. I don't know what I would do if I were the President of the United States with Iraq. This week, and especially yesterday really are making it a sticky situation. Lets go over the highlights:

1. Colin Powell announced yesterday that the White House should stop dancing around semantics and admit that Iraq is in a civil war. He went on to say if he were still in the administration he would insist the administration should admit Iraq was in a civil war. He then offers this wise council: "The coming strategy has to be an Iraqi strategy, not American strategy," and "We have to accept what all Iraqis accept, not to end up seeing a Shia-dominated regime."

2. Something is going on with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al-Malaki. For starters he stood up the President yesterday for their meeting. Bush flew all the way to the Middle East and for whatever reason Al-Maliki decided last minute not to meet with him. They are of course releasing many excuses, but you know with as important as it is for politicians to look like relations are good, this is a problem. Here is a humorous post why Maliki was a no show.

Above: Bush and Al-Maliki

3. Speaking of Al-Maliki, there are additional problems: yesterdays front page New York Times' headline claims Bush's national security advisor sent Bush a classified(don't ask me how the New York Times always finds these things) memo that Al-Maliki is essentially incompetent. Furthermore, Iraq is continually turning more and more to our enemies for helpwrote the American people a heartfelt letter.

4. Today's New York Times headlines revealed the study group's conclusion: gradually pull out of Iraq. The Iraq Study Group is a ten-person panel appointed on March 15, 2006 by the United States Congress that is charged with delivering an independant assessmentof the situation in Iraq and the US-led Iraq War. They supposedly, since it hasn't been officially released, don't want ridged timetables but do want it to begin next year.

5. The UN is being very vocal in it's fear that Iraq is getting out of control. Kofi Annan even admitted that th US is stuck in Iraq, in a bad position. (Picture on Left: Kofi Annan)

6. Last Monday we celebrated spending longer in Iraq that WWII.

Now with all that has been you probably think I am against the war. That would be a presumptuous conclusion. I will state however that I feel we are in a bad enough position that we can't ignore the problems. How can all these things happen in one week and we just ignore it? Progress can't be made if we act like everything is perfect so we can just put the Iraq question on the back-burner.

Like I said, I am glad that I am not directly responsible to decide what to do about all this. However, all American citizens are indirectly responsible for being informed and advocating what they think is best since this is a democracy.

I am not sure what yet I officially advocate, but I will say if the Iraq study group reached a unanimous decision, which people thought might be impossible, I am interested in what they have to say. They are probably more informed then anyone since they are all very smart, spent a lot of time studying it out both here and in Iraq, had full support of the congress, and don't have ties to a particular party cluttering their vision. I can't wait to read the official result. and are distancing themselves from us. Again, something just isn't right here. By the way, speaking of Iraq beginning to side with Iran, Iran's president