The American Pundit

Via Glenn Reynolds, there’s this interesting piece from Fareed Zakaria at Newsweek:

Pity the U.S. presidential candidates. They had their positions on Iraq all worked out by last summer and have repeated them consistently ever since. But events on the ground have changed dramatically, and their rhetoric feels increasingly stale. They’re fighting the Iraq War all right, but it’s the wrong one.

The Democrats are having the hardest time with the new reality. Every candidate is committed to “ending the war” and bringing our troops back home. The trouble is, the war has largely ended, and precisely because our troops are in the middle of it.

I didn’t note it at the time (at least I don’t think I did), but the UN says it can no longer ignore the progress made in Iraq.

“We cannot ignore the recent improvements both in the security and political situation in Iraq,” Staffan de Mistura, head of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), said in a speech to the Security Council.

He said the reduced level of violence could be attributed to a number of factors including the increased presence of U.S. and other troops, a ceasefire declared by Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia, and increased cooperation with Iraq’s neighbors.

Not that they haven’t tried to ignore it.