NY Times report card on Iraq as US forces leave cities

An unusually lengthy editorial in today's NYT does a very good job of enumerating succinctly most of the major problems that Iraq faces "after six bloody, ruinously costly years" of "the Iraq war — an unnecessary war — has diverted critically needed resources away from Afghanistan, the real front in the war on terrorism." (They might have mentioned the resources diverted from the US's own crumbling infrastructure and economy.) Basically, the NYT's assessment confirms - at greater length and in more detail - Thomas Ricks' view as expressed in the piece I blogged last night: that Iraq is well and truly a mess, and a long way from being truly stabilized and prepared to move forward. Time will tell - as it always has.

The NYT declares that "there is an end in sight to the American occupation of Iraq." Occupation - perhaps; it depends on how one defines occupation. but let's not think for a second that Mr. Obama is going to be able to unstick the US from the tar-baby that (please, let's not forget) Messrs. Bush and Cheney made.

Meanwhile, as Iraqis celebrate the US pull-out, 4 more US soldiers were killed on the streets of Baghdad.