Juan Cole: Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2007

[ProSense]

Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2007

10. Myth: The US public no longer sees Iraq as a central issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.<...>

9. Myth: There have been steps toward religious and political reconciliation in Iraq in 2007. <...>

8. Myth: The US troop surge stopped the civil war that had been raging between Sunni Arabs and Shiites in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.<...>

7. Myth: Iran was supplying explosively formed projectiles (a deadly form of roadside bomb) to Salafi Jihadi (radical Sunni) guerrilla groups in Iraq.<...>

6. Myth: The US overthrow of the Baath regime and military occupation of Iraq has helped liberate Iraqi women.<...>

5. Myth: Some progress has been made by the Iraqi government in meeting the "benchmarks" worked out with the Bush administration.<...>

4. Myth: The Sunni Arab "Awakening Councils," who are on the US payroll, are reconciling with the Shiite government of PM Nuri al-Maliki even as they take on al-Qaeda remnants.<...>

3. Myth: The Iraqi north is relatively quiet and a site of economic growth.<...>

2. Myth: Iraq has been "calm" in fall of 2007 and the Iraqi public, despite some grumbling, is not eager for the US to depart.<...>

1. Myth: The reduction in violence in Iraq is mostly because of the escalation in the number of US troops, or "surge." <...>

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[Richard Steele]

1. K&R

[yasmina27]

2. Sent link out

to many of my contacts. Some who believe as we do, others who don't

[BridgeTheGap]

3. the first casualty of war: truth

This piece by Cole proves that the "truth" casualties just keep mounting!

[zbdent]

4. I remember the Repukes going on and on about Somalia/Kosovo being about

hundreds of years of arguing over who fornicated with whom's goat, and that whatever action we take (under Clinton) would not bring peace to the Middle East ... and yet they now believe that, in maybe a thousand years or so, peace MIGHT happen, it would be directly because Bush destroyed any sense of stability there ...

[ck4829]

5. K&R

[Orwellian_Ghost]

6. K&R n/t

[TacticalPeek]

7. K & R

:kick: