In the Fold

As opposed to Rep. Murtha's view that Iraq is a complete mess and we should get out now, is this little nugget.

On the streets of Saddam Hussein's hometown, young men were hanging campaign posters Thursday, some even reaching out to members of the jailed dictator's banned political party.

Dozens of political groups in this city of 200,000 are competing in next month's national election, and turnout throughout the heavily Sunni Arab province is expected to be high.

The activity in Tikrit is a marked contrast to the Jan. 30 parliamentary elections, which most Sunni Arabs boycotted. Their absence from the polls enabled Shiites and Kurds to win an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly, worsening sectarian tensions.

The United States hopes a big turnout will encourage Sunni Arabs to abandon the insurgency in favor of politics, hastening the day the U.S. and other international troops can go home.

The article goes on to explain how some Sunni-Tikritis are still cautious about this whole deal but also how they're realizing what a dumb move it was to sit out the last go around.

Many Sunni Arabs now agree the January boycott was a mistake. This time, Sunni politicians are complaining that Shiite-led security services are trying to prevent them from voting through a campaign of arrests and intimidation amid allegations of torture and maltreatment at an Interior Ministry detention center in Baghdad.

On Thursday, however, the talk was not of voter intimidation or torture allegations. The main complaint from local politicians was that the province's 1.1 million people — the vast majority of them Sunni Arabs — are going to get swindled out of their fair share of National Assembly seats under the current election law.

While there's still a long way to go, this sounds like cause for optimism not defeatism to me. Or you could just dismiss this report since it's from VRWC mouthpiece FoxNews.

Comments

[Dave Justus]

It is amazing to me that so many people think we are losing in Iraq. From what I can tell, we have pretty steadily gone from victory to victory since the battle of Fallujah at the very least. Militarily, Politically, Economically, Iraq is doing better and better.

Yet the meme that we are losing seems not only to not be weakening, but to be gaining strength.