Juan Cole turns around.

Juan Cole has turned around on his "we must stay in and stabilize Iraq." Now, since I've been reading him, he's never been complimentary to the administration and its policies towards iraq, but he still seemed to hold a belief that we were Iraq's best chance at stability. He's changed his mind.

His blog has generally been extremely good at interpreting the true items of importance in the daily Iraq news. He traces the current disorder back to some of the heavy handed tactics taken in the early days of the occupation and the first, unsmart, reactionary suppression of Fallujah after the Blackwater employees were killed.

If you've got a little time, take a read of this.

(Also of interest notice the greater semantic battle taking place in the press. Early on, the administration won it's battle to have the fighters in Iraq titled "insurgents" rather than "guerillas" or even more sympathetically "resistance." I think it's quite telling of the general attitudes towards Iraq and the growing lack of deference of the press towards this administration, that you are starting to see the word "occupation" in regards to Iraq rather than the administration preferred "liberation." The mind of America is turning and revealing itself in the words we use.)