GATEWAY PUNDIT has an extensive timeline of predictions and results in Iraq.

ANOTHER “GRIM MILESTONE” IN IRAQ? Three years of cumulative casualties equal one month’s worth from Vietnam.

STRATEGYPAGE:

It’s the third anniversary of the coalition invasion of Iraq. The elected Iraqi parliament has held its first session, but is prevented from going much farther by factionalism. Iraqis are not keen on compromise, and dictatorship came to Iraq half a century ago when the generals decided to silence the squabbling and take over themselves. Iraqis wonder if they can avoid repeating past mistakes like this. The Shia Arab majority is split in several large, and many smaller, parties, that resist cooperating. The Kurds have two major factions, that are currently tolerating a truce, and dealing with growing popular unrest at the corruption at the faction (clan, actually) leadership.

The Sunni Arabs, who are now the oppressed minority, have always been the most willing group to unite and take charge. But no more. There are many factions. Some are religious extremists, some are secular (like the Baath Party Saddam ran), while others are tribal. One of the factions is al Qaeda, which is basically a group of Sunni Arab Islamic radicals. Al Qaeda is not happy that all Iraqi Sunni Arabs have not supported them. This has degenerated into war between al Qaeda and most Iraqi Sunni Arabs. But many of these same Sunni Arab factions are still hostile to the Shia Arab dominated government.

Most Iraqis understand that a clean, cohesive government is the key to future peace and prosperity. But the cooperation and compromise required to make this all happen has so far eluded Iraqis. American and European diplomats and advisors constantly hover about with suggestions and advice. The key to peace in Iraq is not a military problem, the terrorists and Sunni Arab rebels are beaten. The key to peace is political, and the ability of Iraqi factions to work together. Iraqis have paid a lot of attention to Lebanon, looking for answers. Lebanon is split by religious factions (about one third Shia, one third Sunni and one third Christian). Lebanon went through a 15 year civil war (1975-90), and since making peace, the country has prospered (without oil, just the skills of the people), despite interference from Syria. The Lebanese example gives hope, but the payoff is in the performance. The Iraqi politicians have to perform. In the next few months, we’ll see if they can.

Indeed. The problems are now mostly political, and can only be worked out by politicians. That said, the United States could have done more to dissuade Iran and Syria from interfering. Upside is that Iraqis know this, and if things work out they’re likely to remember, to our benefit and the Syrians’ and Iranian mullahs’ detriment.

UPDATE: Reader Rachel Walker emails:

With Iraq finally having a coalition government, some oil based trade (I heard a Norwegian oil company was interested in negotiating with Kurds), and the persistence of unity (or at least attempts) after the Samarra mosque bombing, why is the left and right suddenly saying the war is a failure and Bush is doing a bad job? Shouldn’t they have been saying this in 2004?

Some of them were saying it in 2001, of course . . . .

I think that attitudes on the war have more to do with attitudes on Bush than with realities on the ground, among a lot of people on both left and right. As Bush’s popularity has sunk — largely for non-war reasons — it has pushed the war’s popularity down, too.

HAVEIL HAVALIM IS UP! And don’t miss the Carnival of the Recipes. More at BlogCarnival.com, which, being automated, is a lot more efficient at noting these things than I am.

MORE PROTESTS IN BELARUS: Publius has a roundup.

LUKASHENKO WINS, OPPOSITION CHARGES FRAUD:

Iron-fisted incumbent Alexander Lukashenko was headed to an overwhelming win in Sunday’s presidential vote in the former Soviet republic of Belarus, the elections chief said. Thousands of opposition supporters protested the results in the city’s main square.

The protesters chanted “Long Live Belarus!” and the name of the main opposition candidate, Alexander Milinkevich. Some waved a national flag that Lukashenko banned in favor of a Soviet-style replacement, while others waved European Union flags. Milinkevich arrived later. . . .

Lukashenko had vowed to prevent the kind of mass rallies that helped bring opposition leaders to power in former Soviet republics Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan following disputed elections.

The use or threat of force neutralized opposition efforts to protest vote results in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan last year, and a bloody government crackdown in Uzbekistan left hundreds dead.

“It will be a peaceful demonstration. We will come out with flowers,” Milinkevich said after voting at a school. “We do not intend to elect a president on the square. We will tell people the truth.”

Read the whole thing.

A LOOK AT ANTI-AMERICANISM IN EUROPEAN MEDIA.

SCOTT MILLER’S new album is out.

THOUGHTS ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION and South Park.

UPDATE: Jim Lindgren: “What is it about cartoons and religion?”

OVER AT GLOBAL VOICES, nonstop blogging of election news from Belarus. Belarusian blog BR23 is also on the case.

ME, POLLYANNAISH? I still don’t know what could possibly give people that idea.

Now if you want to see somebody who’s really Pollyannaish, click “read more.”

(more…)

THE NEW YORK TIMES’ APOLOGY for being suckered in an Abu Ghraib scam isn’t enough for Mediacrity. “The issue, however, is not one reporter’s sloppiness or gullibility, but rather a system that is all too eager to skew the military and publish anti-American swill without even elementary checking.”

Ed Morrissey isn’t impressed, either: “The correction, quite frankly, stinks.”

UPDATE: More thoughts from TigerHawk: “Can you imagine any excuse more humiliating? Probably not, but it is instructive that the Times obviously thought the ‘PBS said it’ defense would fly. Sheesh.”

Still more bad news for the Times here and, perhaps, here.

MORE: Tom Maguire has further thoughts, and offers a mild correction to Ed Morrissey and TigerHawk.

AN ANNIVERSARY for LaShawn Barber.

IRANIAN DISSIDENT AKBAR GANJI has been released.

WHAT IF THEY HELD ANTIWAR PROTESTS AND NOBODY CAME? Gateway Pundit says that’s pretty much what happened at events meant to protest the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion.

UPDATE: ATC says that those who showed up seemed less anti-war than anti-American and anti-Bush. You don’t say.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More photos here. They’re not so much “antiwar” as just on the other side.

Brian Dunn, meanwhile, is enjoying a different and larger set of protests.

AN ARMY OF TRANSLATORS: Hiawatha Bray reports on the Iraqi documents translation effort, in the Boston Globe.

One advantage: The blogosphere won’t fire translators because they’re gay!

SO FAR, I’m enjoying Peter Hamilton’s Judas Unchained.

STRATEGYPAGE says that “people power” won’t work in Iran.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: An interview with the lowest-ranking Republican in Congress, Rep. John Campbell. He’s only been there for 60 days and he’s already gotten 63 requests for earmarks.

ANOTHER ARMY OF DAVIDS REVIEW, this one from Don Surber: “Reynolds is not a Pollyanna. He is the realist.”

UPDATE: You know, someday I’m going to have to actually read Pollyanna. It’s one of those books that has become an expression, but that hardly anyone ever reads. Heck, I never even saw the movie. Have I missed anything?

ORRIN JUDD says that Bush doesn’t deserve his big-spender label:

At any rate, given that Ms Noonan believes, for some reason, that Ronald Reagan was a conservative and George W. Bush isn’t, it’s perhaps helpful to just compare the two: when Ronald Reagan left office in 1988 he was dunning us 18.1% of GDP to pay for a federal government that spent 21.2% of GDP. In 2004, the last year for which I could find numbers, George W. Bush had lowered our tax burden to 16.3% of GDP– a level last reached in 1959–to pay for a government that spent 19.8 of GDP.

There doesn’t seem to be any coherent reason why a president’s conservatism should be judged by how much he spends, but if you’re using that as your yardstick then Mr. Reagan was the most liberal president since FDR during WWII and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are the most conservative since Nixon.

Interesting.

BETSY NEWMARK: “I seem to exist again.”

MORE ON DARFUR.

I’M SORRY: “Yesterday we got an Instalanche (thank you, Glenn!) the traffic from which unfortunately had the effect of crashing our server.” It’s a sort of Heisenberg effect, only where it’s reporting, not observation, that changes things . . ..

THE BEND OF HISTORY:

“President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. Instead of focusing on eliminating weapons of mass destruction, or reducing the threat of terror to the United States, Mr. Bush talked about establishing a ‘free and peaceful Iraq’ that would serve as a ‘dramatic and inspiring example’ to the entire Arab and Muslim world, provide a stabilizing influence in the Middle East and even help end the Arab-Israeli conflict.”–editorial, New York Times, Feb. 27, 2003

“One prominent neoconservative, Francis Fukuyama, asserts in a new book that the administration embraced democracy as a cornerstone of its policy only after the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq. The issue was seized upon to justify the war in retrospect, and then expanded for other countries, he says.”–New York Times, March 17, 2006

Heh.