{"id":2698,"date":"2008-06-12T06:03:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-12T11:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2698"},"modified":"2008-06-12T06:03:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-12T11:03:00","slug":"status-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2698","title":{"rendered":"Status Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kimberly and Frederick Kagan in the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> on <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB121305438938259017.html\">the current status of the war in Iraq<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>Conclusion (emphasis added by me):<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"times\">The war is not over. Enemy groups are reforming, rearming and preparing new attacks. Al Qaeda in Iraq will conduct spectacular attacks in 2008 wherever it can. Special Groups and their JAM affiliates will probably reconstitute within a few months and launch <strong>new offensives timed to influence both the American and Iraqi elections<\/strong> in the fall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"times\">And for all its progress and success, the ISF is not yet able to stand on its own. Coalition forces continue to play key support roles, maintaining stability and security in cleared but threatened areas, and serving as impartial and honest brokers between Iraqi groups working toward reconciliation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"times\">But success is in sight. Compared with the seemingly insurmountable obstacles already overcome, the remaining challenges in Iraq are eminently solvable \u2013 if we continue to pursue a determined strategy that builds on success <strong>rather than throwing our accomplishments away<\/strong>. No one in December 2006 could have imagined how far we would have come in 18 months. Having come this far, we must see this critical effort through to the end.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Read the whole thing.\u00a0 Draw your own conclusions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kimberly and Frederick Kagan in the Wall Street Journal on the current status of the war in Iraq: Conclusion (emphasis added by me): The war is not over. Enemy groups are reforming, rearming and preparing new attacks. Al Qaeda in Iraq will conduct spectacular attacks in 2008 wherever it can. Special Groups and their JAM [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}