The Surge to Nowhere by Robert Dreyfuss

Like some neocon Wizard of Oz, in building expectations for the 2007 version of his “Strategy for Victory” in Iraq, President Bush is promising far more than he can deliver. It is now nearly two months since he fired Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, installing Robert Gates in his place, and the White House revealed that a full-scale review of America’s failed policy in Iraq was underway. Last week, having spent months — if, in fact, the New York Times is correct that the review began late in the summer — consulting with generals, politicians, State Department and CIA bureaucrats, and Pentagon planners, Bush emerged from yet another powwow to tell waiting reporters: “We’ve got more consultation to do until I talk to the country about the plan.”

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Our Meaningless ‘Sacrifice’ in Iraq Must Stop by Keith Olberman

The president has delayed, dawdled and deferred for the month since the release of the Iraq Study Group.

He has seemingly heard out everybody, and listened to none of them.

If the BBC is right — and we can only pray it is not — he has settled on the only solution all the true experts agree cannot possibly work: more American personnel in Iraq, not as trainers for Iraqi troops, but as part of some flabby plan for “sacrifice.”

Sacrifice!

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The Irrelevance of Military Victory by Rep. Ron Paul

At the close of the Vietnam War in 1975, a telling conversation took place between an NVA colonel named Tu and an American colonel named Harry Summers. Col. Summers reportedly said, “You never beat us on the battlefield.” Tu replied, “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.” It is likewise irrelevant to seek military victory in Iraq.

As conditions deteriorate in Iraq, the American people are told more blood must be spilled to achieve just such a military victory. Twenty thousand additional troops and another $100 billion are needed for a “surge.” Yet the people remain rightfully skeptical.

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Iraqis will never accept this sellout to the oil corporations by Kamil Mahdi

This law has been discussed behind closed doors for much of the past year. Secret drafts have been viewed and commented on by the US government, but have not been released to the Iraqi public - and not even to all members of parliament. If the law is pushed through in these circumstances, the political process will be further discredited even further. Talk of a moderate cross-sectarian front appears designed to ease the passage of the law and the sellout to oil corporations.

The US, the IMF and their allies are using fear to pursue their agenda of privatising and selling off Iraq’s oil resources. The effect of this law will be to marginalise Iraq’s oil industry and undermine the nationalisation measures undertaken between 1972 and 1975. It is designed as a reversal of Law Number 80 of December 1961 that recovered most of Iraq’s oil from a foreign cartel. Iraq paid dearly for that courageous move: the then prime minister, General Qasim, was murdered 13 months later in a Ba’athist-led coup that was supported by many of those who are part of the current ruling alliance - the US included.

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