The changing shape of the Iraq debate

Read this paragraph about the situation in Iraq:

To the visitor, Baghdad now seems a city in panic. Tens of thousands of Sunnis and Shia have fled. The imprecise Baghdad estimate is 125,000; nationally it is 300,000. Those who stay live in constant fear, locking themselves in their homes and businesses, wary of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, though it is increasingly difficult to ascribe any kind of logic to the rising wave of violence. When I sat down with a group of Iraqi engineers in Baghdad, they could speak of nothing else. “I live on Palestine Street, which is supposed to be one of the nicest areas, and still there is no water and no electricity,” said one man. “People get killed, but nobody knows why. People say it is for religious reasons, for political reasons, but we have many friends and family members who are killed and we know they have none of these associations. We are living in hell.”

Now, before you read further, guess where the article was published.

It was published in early January at FrontPage Magazine, which for the last four years closed out any strong article critical of our Iraq policy. The article is a reprint of a long piece by Robert Zelnick in Policy Review.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 24, 2007 06:30 PM | Send