MORE DISSEMBLING

I don't know Stephen Biddle's position on war with Iraq before we invaded but he certainly seems ill-informed. In the summer of 2003 to the summer of 2004, we had an excellent chance of preventing Iraq from falling into chaos IF WE HAD SENT MORE TROOPS THEN!

U.S. experts see rare chance for stability in Iraq
Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:24pm EST

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The sharp drop in violence that has accompanied the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq has given the war-torn country a rare opportunity for stability, analysts said on Wednesday.

"We may have an opportunity in Iraq that has not been available since 2003 to stabilize the country and avert the downside risks of failure," Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign relations told the House Armed Services hearing.

The positive side of Biddle's comment is that it shows that many of the anti-war people were correct about how things were going in Iraq. I also like how the assign the major causal roles in the reduction of violence:

Lawmakers were told that the 60 percent drop in violence last year was due largely to Sunni tribal leaders' backing of the U.S. military against al Qaeda in Iraq and radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's call for loyal Shi'ite militiamen to stand down.

Those developments, combined with an apparent reduction of Iranian support for violent Shi'ite militias, have altered the calculus of sectarian differences in the country and cast the U.S. mission in a more positive light, they said.

I especially liked this remark:

"While the U.S. presence may have stoked insurgent violence in Iraq between 2003 and 2006, the U.S. is, for now, a force for stability," said Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

WINE is an off-shoot of AIPAC and AIPAC is the major right-wing Israel lobby.