American And Iraqi Government Definitions Of Success May Be Far Different

The American government may define success in Iraq as simply being able to stabilize the situation in Baghdad enough to begin some sort of slow troop drawdowns, whereas the heavy number of Sunni insurgent inspired car bombings and attacks on mainly Shiite citizens may well be hardening attitudes of the Shiite dominated government to drive for a crushing defeat and reduction of the Iraqi Sunni population. The U.S. and Iraqi governments couldn't be farther apart on this definition of success.

Only weeks ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was critical of any further U.S. troop increases. Now al-Maliki seems to not only support more U.S. troops to Iraq, but also now claims he may even ask for further U.S. troop increases if it is needed to stem the rapidly rising tide of Sunni insurgent violence. This weekend's very serious incident at a mainly Shiite open market was a good example of the rapidly worsening situation.

More and more violence in Iraq is only hardening the Shiite population and the anger of Shiite death squads and militia organizations as well. All of this keeps bringing Iraq farther and farther from the stability that the U.S. would like to see as the ticket out of Iraq for most U.S. forces.