From the jaws of defeat
November 3, 2007 | by David Steven | More on Middle East and North Africa, North America | No comments
The Sunday Times in its lead editorial:
Is no news good news or bad news? In Iraq, it seems good news is deemed no news….
The instinct of too many people is that if Iraq is going badly we should get out because it is going badly and if it is getting better we should get out because it is getting better. This is a catastrophic miscalculation. Iraq is getting better. That is good, not bad, news.
In the recent silence about Iraq (apparently no bad news is no news at all), we fail to appreciate that we are witnessing one of the most dramatic turnabouts in a war in our history, comparable to the 90 day radical change from June to September 1864.
Both expect the Democrats to suffer. The Times:
The current achievements, and they are achievements, are being treated as almost an embarrassment in certain quarters. The entire context of the contest for the Democratic nomination for president has been based on the conclusion that Iraq is an absolute disaster.
Davis Hanson:
There will be fundamental political adjustments… [such as] having the entire leadership of the Democratic either ignore Iraq, claim the victory was not worth the commensurate cost of the last four plus years, or take proprietorship over Gen. Petraeus’s success…
If Iraq is stable by spring of next year, the entire political landscape here at home will be altered.
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