Crocker: ‘Strengthened Spirit of Reconciliation’

Amb. Ryan Crocker is clearly the John Hall to Petraeus’s Darryl Oates. In his opening statement, he listed a smorgasbord of laws the Iraqis passed, without regard to their substance, underscoring a “strengthened spirit of reconciliation.” The provincial powers law is a “major step forward… a fundamental debate over the nature of the state, similar in its complexity to the [American] debate over states’ rights.” One imagines Nouri al-Maliki standing outside a Basra schoolhouse and brandishing an axe handle.

Oh, and the forthcoming long-term security agreement? It won’t “tie the hands of the next administration.” Because that’s just not what long-term security agreements do!