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Anthony Shadid of the New York Times reports that American officials are finally getting worried about the long impasse that’s prevented the formation of an Iraqi government five months after parliamentary elections were held. However:

In the end, many officials expect an eventual agreement on some sort of consensus government so inclusive as to be woefully weak, unable to assert itself and beset by stalemate over the laws necessary to shape post-American Iraq.

Smells like victory!

The gist of the article is that American planners never had a clue about what they were doing, Iraqi politicians have been feckless and conniving, and regional politics is relentless at turning everything into a quagmire. In other words, the entire venture was fubar from the beginning. But you probably already knew that, didn’t you?

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