Does This Washington Post Article Constitute News?

It is hard to imagine how today's Washington Post article, "Iraq Sinking Fast," could be viewed as anything other then agenda journalism at its worst. It is particularly odious, coming as it does, on the first day of major offensives against al Qaeda. As our soldiers fight and die, the Post prints this tripe saying all is lost and it is time to give up. What a craven and despicable lot they are indeed.

The article is the Post's take on a report released by the "Fund for Peace," an organization that the Post tells us is a "research organization and advocacy group." The group says that Iraq is lost and we should leave it in three pieces. Does that sound familiar? Do Reid and Pelosi come to mind.

The ethically challenged Post does not tell us anything about the Fund for Peace that would allow its readers to judge the bias and validity of the Fund's message, but if you click on the Fund's website, you will learn that this is an organization that views all "violence as the last refuge of the incompetent." One almost expects to hear "Kumbiyah" playing in the background. A thorough check of the site reveals not a mention of any of the following: Wahhabi Islam, Khomeinism, Iran, radical Islam, al Qaeda, bin Laden, Zawahiri, nuclear terrorism, Anbar Awakening, counterinsurgeny, surge, 9-11, 7-7, etc. The fact that not just one, but all of these topics are ignored by the "Fund for Peace" might suggest to Post readers that what they are reading is not quite balanced and "reality based."

Of course you will find none of this in the Washington Post report. The Post is fine with merely reporting this groups anti Iraq war message without digging at all into its validitiy or bias. It is only the message that is important.

"The report tells us that Iraq is sinking fast," said Fund for Peace President Pauline Baker. "We believe it's reached the point of no return. We have recommended -- based on studies done every six months since the U.S. invasion -- that the administration face up to the reality that the only choices for Iraq are how and how violently it will break up."

In a parallel series of reports, the Fund for Peace, a research and advocacy group, suggests a policy of managed partition for Iraq.

Ah, such a wonderful thought. Let's just split up Iraq and then we can all get along. Letting alone for the moment that this plan wholly ignores the surge, this is dangerously, if not suicidally, sophmoric.

As a threshold matter, allowing the Kurds to form their own country or anything resembling such an entity in the north is an invitation to a military response from Turkey and quite possibly Iran, neither of whom are willing to tolerate anything resembling a Kurdish state to emerge from Iraq. Both see such as a major threat, given their own large Kurdish populations. Turkey has been quite open about what their response will be.

Two, the Sunnis, including Sunni insurgents, are in open revolt against al Qaeda in Iraq and, in the Sunni stronghold of Anbar, it would appear that the Sunnis are joining with the government. The plan to subdivide Iraq completely ignores those realities. But there is more. It would abandon the Sunni areas to be reoccupied by the better funded, better armed and incredibly brutal al Qaeda. And al Qaeads
is fighting to establish an Islamic state or caliphate in Iraq, not simply a portion of Iraq.

Lastly, if not most importantly, it leaves Shia Iraq to fall wholly under the influence of Iran. Iran is doing all it can at the moment to influence the Iraqi government, and indeed, in Sadr's Mahdi Army, it has something that is beginning to resemble a Hezbollah like proxy force. The greatest brake on Iranian influence at the moment is that even now, Shia's only hold a plurality in Iraq's government and thus must look to Kurds and Sunni legislators to govern. Neither the Sunnis nor the Kurds appear willing to tolerate Iranian influence. Yet to follow the partition plan would be to abandon the majority of Iraq directly to Iran.

Thanks for reporting this as news, Washington Post. We salute you for your integrity and patriotism. And we wish that your stock prices go the way of the New York Times.