Vegacura: David, neocons are a tribe, too

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Shorter David Brooks: I learn from a book I haven't read that ~~Iran~~

Iraq

is made up of tribes? Who knew?

UPDATED for stupidity

Thanks to the commenter who overlooked that.

Anonymous said...: "More than 70,000 local council members are paid by the Americans. They rely on the U.S. military to enforce bargains and deter truce-breaking. Thanks to these arrangements, ethno-sectarian violence dropped by 90 percent between June 2007 and March 2008. That’s the result of political progress, not just counterinsurgency techniques."

I guess that's what's called the "money quote."

Brooks concludes: "There has been political progress. It just doesn’t look the way we expected it to."

Yeah, who would have expected payoffs and coercion to be the prime tools for "spreading democracy"?; 5:22 PM