http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005048.phpRemember all that stuff about benchmarks? You know, measurements of progress by the Iraqi government? Well, that was last year.
There's a new catchphrase in town: "Iraqi solutions." And it means that while the Iraqis might have failed to accomplish just about all the goals the U.S. set, that's OK, and you gotta just roll with it and let the Iraqis do their thing.
Here's how it goes, from The Washington Post:
From Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to Army privates and aid workers, officials are expressing their willingness to stand back and help Iraqis develop their own answers. "We try to come up with Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems," said Stephen Fakan, the leader of a provincial reconstruction team with U.S. troops in Fallujah.
In many cases -- particularly on the political front -- Iraqi solutions bear little resemblance to the ambitious goals for 2007 that Bush laid out in his speech to the nation last Jan. 10. "To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis," he pledged. "Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year . . . the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution."...
To Crocker, the meaning of "Iraqi solutions to Iraqi problems" is "blindingly obvious. Iraq has got a government. It's got a system. It's got provincial governments. It's got a military and a police. And it has leaders of all of these things who increasingly take themselves seriously as leaders."
The New York Times noted this reduction in expectations last year, but it didn't have the requisite branding. Now it does. Some, however, are unimpressed with the rollout. The Post quotes a retired British general as saying that this supposed "dawning of reality" is a "cynical use of language" used "to camouflage past errors."
Whether it's realism or cynicism you can decide. An Army official favorably quotes Lawrence of Arabia as proof that this is an old, tried solution: "Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly."
Unfortunately, it's that "tolerable" part that's the sticking point.
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