The Daily Background

The Associated Press occasionally lets its veteran reporters opine on various issues in “analysis” pieces. Most of the time it’s by their Capitol Hill people, writing on the topic of some political stuff, like how much capital Bush has left, or other domestic stuff, Here’s the latest one of these opinion pieces, this time about Iraq from 17 year AP veteran military beat reporter Robert Burns:

The harder President Bush has pushed to win in Iraq, the closer he has come to losing.

The question no longer is whether the U.S. military can fully stabilize Iraq. It cannot.

That was a possibility four years ago, immediately after Saddam Hussein’s government fell. Before the insurgency took hold. Before U.S. occupation authorities lost any chance to avoid the sectarian strife of today’s Iraq.

Now only the Iraqis can save Iraq.

Burns says that the issue we should be addressing “is not whether the U.S. can win the war. It is whether the Iraqis can, which is in great doubt.” Burns is right. As I’ve said several times before, American soldiers cannot win an Iraqi civil war.

However, I hope that his speaking out on this isn’t used by conservatives in a weak attempt to back up their “the media is liberal!” thesis. I have no idea what Burns’ politics are (nor do I really care), but what these conservatives (who I’m sure would level the “liberal bias” charge against him if they notice this column) don’t understand is that you don’t have to be liberal by any means to recognize the simple reality that Iraq cannot be pacified by Bush’s military policy.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog