[Nation-Building] We Can't Assemble Bikes on Xmas Eve, What Made Us Think We'd Do Better With Iraq?

The New York Times is reporting that the US is looking to guarantee a role for Sunnis in the new(-er, -ish) Iraqi government, regardless of the election outcome. (Sounds like last-minute Xmas-shopping to me...) Also, this morning on CNN, Henry Kissinger floated the idea of partition. Not sure what took that idea so long to surface, given that Iraq itself is a colonial construct.

I seem to recall hearing/reading somewhere that someone (National Guard families?) were marking the days to the elections (with lighted candles? ribbons?). If the elections do not mark a turning point — and no one, not even the Donald, seems to think that elections will change anything — I wonder if American public opinion will begin to shift from denial and/or numbing depression to healthy rage. In any case, should be an interesting State of the Union speech.

Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski were doing a back-and-forth on US foreign policy with Wolf Blitzer, and at one point Brzezinski began to engage Kissinger directly until Wolf stepped in to prevent anything resembling actual debate. Blitzer asked Brzezinski if Iraq was another Vietnam — "Hey, Wolf! Ask Henry that question!" Goddamn free-range war criminal.

Finally, I also caught one of CNN's "Profiles-in-Courage" storylets this morning, about a soldier who was back in Iraq, after losing one eye and much of the sight in the other, the loss of hearing in one ear and partial hearing in the other. "But I'm completely healthy from the neck down!" Good metaphor for US Iraqi policy. Blind, deaf and mentally disengaged.