Placing Blame on the Iraqis ....

It's difficult to see the complete logic raised in this latest Washington Post analysis which shows a wide swath of the American body politic placing sole blame on the Iraqis for their current condition. This skillfully removes the Bush Administration from any blame for a war that shouldn't have been executed in the first place (and if Hussein was that much of a threat to the region and world, we had ample chance to get rid of him with 500,000 troops during the first Gulf War in 1991). What happened to faulty [manipulated] intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that didn't show up?

A point hard for many to swallow: Iraq's religious and ethnic rivalries were kept under brutal control under the iron boot of Saddam Hussein. Yes: that gives Hussein credit where no one seeks to place credit, but in a society that for so long was defined by vicious and shrewd control, one should hardly expect it to become "civic-minded" and "independent" overnight. Post notes:

Even Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the occupation say the people and government of Iraq are not doing enough to rebuild their society. The White House is putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have debated how much to blame Iraqis for not performing civic duties.

What this should read is this: "Even Democrats have become eerily tepid and withdrawn in their previous criticism of the war after handily winning Congress." Now that they got the votes, notice Dems are less aggressive in the call for oversight.