Bush's Optimists Club

Sudarsan Raghavan writes in The Washington Post: "As the U.S. military attempts to pacify Iraq so its leaders can pursue political reconciliation, Iraqi and Western observers say Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his inner circle appear increasingly unable to pull the government out of its paralysis.

"At times consumed by conspiracy theories, Maliki and his Dawa party elite operate much as they did when they plotted to overthrow Saddam Hussein -- covertly and concerned more about their community's survival than with building consensus among Iraq's warring groups, say Iraqi politicians and analysts and Western diplomats.

"In recent weeks, those suspicions have deepened as U.S. military commanders have begun to work with Sunni insurgents, longtime foes of the Shiite-led government, who have agreed to battle the group al-Qaeda in Iraq. . . .

"In the fifth year of war, Iraq's politicians remain more loyal to their sect, clan, tribe and region than they are to the nation. A culture of fear, inherited from Hussein's reign, remains entrenched."

David S. Cloud writes in the New York Times: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that he was discouraged by the resignation of the Sunnis from Iraq's cabinet and that the Bush administration might have misjudged the difficulty of achieving reconciliation between Iraq's sectarian factions.

"In one of his bluntest assessments of the progress of the administration's Iraq strategy, Mr. Gates said, 'I think the developments on the political side are somewhat discouraging at the national level.' . . .

"Mr. Gates gave little indication whether he was leaning toward recommending a shift in the administration's strategy next month, when officials are planning to review whether progress has been achieved by sending nearly 30,000 additional American troops to Iraq.

"He acknowledged that when the Bush administration decided to send the additional troops, 'We probably all underestimated the depth of the mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together on legislation, which, let's face it, is not some kind of secondary issue.'"

Blogger Ioz writes: "Can it be true that the United States is engaged in a clandestine effort, using its own special operations troops, to support Turkish incursions into Iraqi territory to combat the PKK and other 'Kurdish guerillas'? Sure!"

After all, he writes: "The United States is supporting: the Shia government, which funnels money and arms to Shia militias, death squads, and insurgent/terrorist groups; the Sunni opposition, which funnels money and arms to the Sunni insurgency; the Sunni insurgency directly, so that they will combat the Shia militias as well as al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group of Sunni terrorists supposedly supported by Shia Iran; the Saudis, who fund Sunni insurgents as well--almost surely--as Sunni terrorist groups; the Iraqi Kurds, who have their sights set on an independent nation that includes a de-Arabized Kirkuk; and the Turks, who have their sights set on never, ever seeing an independent Kurdish entity anywhere, anyhow, anyway, ever, amen."

Meanwhile, on the Hill

Paul Kane writes in The Washington Post: "A young White House political aide was grilled inconclusively by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday about the firings of U.S. attorneys after Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser, failed to show up at the committee's hearing in response to a subpoena.

"J. Scott Jennings, 29, the deputy political director for the White House, refused to address the firings but tried to explain how thousands -- or possibly millions -- of White House e-mails to and from the political office were transmitted only through communications accounts controlled by the Republican National Committee. . . .