So, UT, what do you think of the Iraq big picture now?

[Undertoad]

Glad you asked! It gives me a chance to offer up my latest collection of wild ideas. Let me take off the aluminum hat for a moment here...

It's now so painfully obvious that news coverage has gotten the situation in Iraq completely wrong, that media pundits are accepting it as a given and wondering how different media are going to deal with the bias.

The media lacked a "natural narrative" in Iraq, so they reported a Baghdad murder rate lower than that of Washington DC as a terrible morass and quagmire of losing the peace. That turns out to be pretty much wrong, and now people believe it, too late for Time magazine to pull back its cover story tomorrow that repeats the morass mantra.

In the meantime, what nobody noticed was that the White House remained completely silent on these reports. Various people would report back, such as Tobiasly, to say that what they had seen was copacetic and that the US is number one on the pop charts with no bullet. Nobody listened. A few pundits went over and came back with glowing reports, such as Hitchens, and they were largely ignored.

It took a Democrat, US Rep Jim Marshall, to actually go over there and come back with the positive story with urgency, for people to sit up and take notice. What, you mean an important Democrat says it's important to understand that things are going well?

The White House could have played defense here and played up the positive stories in Iraq; they could have given the media a narrative. But it would have looked like spin no matter what -- and more importantly, they knew they were about to make a request for a large number of dollars.

In the "quagmire" narrative, that large number looks like it's needed to straighten out the mess. In reality, there is no mess and things are getting rapidly better. So why spend the money?

Two possibilities. One is that it's a huge payment to US corporations, at least some of whom got no-bid contracts. Two is that the real goal is to absolutely, positively guarantee that Iraq doesn't just recover, but is massively and immediately successful, and a massive and immediate best buddy of its brother, the U.S. of A.

So why go back to the UN? Not because the other countries' money and troops are desperately needed, but because we reclaim lost goodwill. The average Iraqi already HATES the UN anyway, and doesn't want the UN around, because they see the UN as having made the dirty deals with Saddam all along.

But in going back to the UN, we also underline to the Iraqis how the French are truly operating. The average Iraqi wants the US to stick around and their worry is that the US will leave too soon. And that is exactly the proposal that the French offered: for the US to leave as soon as possible.

I bet the Iraqis and French remain bitter enemies after this.