Blog Candy: Abu Ardvark

Was just introduced to Abu Ardvark via Foreign Policy Watch:

Abu Aardvark started in 2002 as a pseudonymous blog about Middle East politics, especially Iraq and the Arab media. In 2005, it was revealed to be the work of Marc Lynch, now a professor of political science at George Washington University and author of Voices of the New Arab Public (Columbia University Press). Now everybody who matters reads it. - Abu Ardvark - About

Lynch's entry from 11.4 entitled Maliki: enough about reconciliation is a truly frightening look at the Iraqi PM's new "bottom-up" approach to stability in Iraq, and guess what? Mission accomplished, folks! Now the PM's believes ultimate stability in Iraq has already come and will continue to come at the community level, in neighborhoods where Sunnis and Shiites live side by side. Malaki's lowering of the bar, by changing the definition of the mission is the keystone of the Bush administration that, lo and behold, supports the administration's self-delusional goals for the surge in Iraq:

As the violence recedes, leaders in all the contending Iraqi communities will naturally seek to address their internal differences. Our interest in the outcome is limited: As long as the Iraqis are committed to the principle of resolving their differences through a political process rather than violence, and as long as any settlement they reach is sufficiently fair so as not to reignite the violence, then our interests will have been secured. - The Weekly Standard

This reshaping of the administration's and the Iraqi's ultimate goals paints the national political deadlock in Iraq as a circumnavigable obstacle in a long-term "bottom-up" strategy. This despite the pre-surge ideas that "local security progress would create a political space allowing the national politicians to make a deal" (Lynch) and "that the Sunnis have decided to switch from a logic of armed resistance to a logic of political participation" (Lynch) have failed to materialize nationally.

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