Here's a key paragraph from the Schwartz piece. Note how the Bush administration propaganda war on the U.S. public leads to some unintended consequences, suggesting that those who "make their own reality" ultimately have to deal with the consequences of that reality:
As the Iraqi government accumulates an expanding lake of petrodollars and finds ways to shake them loose from the clutches of U.S. banks and U.S. government administrators, its leaders will have the resources to pursue policies that reflect their own goals. The decline in violence, taken in the U.S. as a sign of American "success," has actually accelerated this process. It has made the Maliki regime feel ever less dependent for its survival on the American presence, while strengthening internal and regional forces resistant or antagonistic to Washington's Middle East ambitions.
These developments beg two questions:
The question remains: Can anything reverse the centripetal forces pulling Iraq from Washington's orbit? Will the President's "surge" strategy prove to have been the nail in the coffin of its hopes for U.S. dominance in the Middle East?
If this turns out to be the case, then watch out domestically. The inevitable controversy over "who lost Iraq" -- an echo of those earlier controversies over "who lost China" and "who lost Vietnam" -- is bound to be on the way.
My present guess on the November presidential elections is that McCain wins. Between voter ID laws supressing democratic votes, republican control of the voting apparatus in Florida and Ohio, and the reenergizing of the dominionist foot soldiers, I expect the 2008 electoral map to look like the 2004 map.
If the republicans steal the election for McCain (or democratic congressional ineptitude loses it), don't expect the troops to leave Iraq, so the "who lost Iraq" question will be mute for the tenure of the Palin administration.
