{"id":1982,"date":"2007-04-29T08:03:16","date_gmt":"2007-04-29T13:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1982"},"modified":"2007-04-29T08:07:08","modified_gmt":"2007-04-29T13:07:08","slug":"isnt-it-ironic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1982","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The magic has taken over the magician.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Training Iraqi troops no longer driving force in U.S. policy<br \/>\nBy Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realcities.com\/mld\/krwashington\/17104704.htm\">19 April 2007<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>WASHINGTON &#8211; Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>[ <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realcities.com\/mld\/krwashington\/17104704.htm\">Read the report<\/a> ]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Hat tip: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/23\/justin-raimondo-5\/\">Antiwar Radio: Scott Horton Interviews Justin Raimondo<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The last thing the Middle East&#8217;s main players want is US troops to leave Iraq<br \/>\nBy Hussein Agha, <em>The Guardian<\/em>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/commentisfree\/story\/0,,2064703,00.html\">25 April 2007<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In common with neighbouring states, Iraqi Shias, Sunnis and Kurds are united in being able to use the Americans&#8217; presence to pursue separate and often conflicting political agendas. The grand disconnect in the region is between the political sentiments of ordinary people, which are overwhelmingly for an end to occupation, and the political calculations of leaders, which emphasise the benefits of using the Americans and consequently of extending their stay &#8211; at least for the time being.<\/p>\n<p>In this grim picture, the Americans appear the least sure and most confused. With unattainable objectives, wobbly plans, changing tactics, shifting alliances and ever-increasing casualties, it is not clear any longer what they want or how they are going to achieve it. By setting themselves up to be manipulated, they give credence to an old Arab saying: the magic has taken over the magician.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Training Iraqi troops no longer driving force in U.S. policy By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers, 19 April 2007 WASHINGTON &#8211; Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1982\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-vY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}