U.S. military role in Iraq ending with a whimper, amid the bang of terrorist bombs

America really has tuned out Iraq. In two days, all combat functions by U.S. forces will have ended and U.S. forces will be officially gone from Iraqi population centers, a change that has involved the dismantling of 85 percent of U.S. bases in that country over a period of a few months, even as inconceivably horrible terrorist bombings proceed apace, and the U.S. media are barely registering any of it. Out of 40 political links on the main page of Real Clear Politics today, there are two about Iraq, by Michael Goodwin in the New York Daily News and Trudy Rubin in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Neither says anything you couldn’t have thought of yourself. Will it go south, becoming of necessarily Obama’s war? Goodwin thinks that’s more likely. Rubin thinks Iraq will “limp along, making slow progress,” perhaps ending with “another Saddam who is a little better.” Meanwhile, Iraq is supposed to have a referendum next month on whether all U.S. presence should end by the end of 2011.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 29, 2009 03:01 PM | Send