The complex reality on the ground in Iraq is finally being acknowledged by the White House.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. military is joining forces with the State Department to prepare a new Iraq strategy that includes negotiating cease-fire and power-sharing agreements with some enemy combatants, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
A “joint campaign plan redesign team” is preparing the diplomatic and military strategy for Iraq, which is expected to be approved by the end of the month.
The team laying out the new course for how to proceed in the four-year-old war is led by Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, the officials told CNN.
One element of the plan is to try to identify groups of people — possibly including Sunni extremists and militia groups — with whom U.S. officials feel they can do business, such as negotiating power-sharing and cease-fire agreements and granting economic aid, the sources said.
While this is clearly a huge step forward, this is the way the wingnut media is spinning it:
America Signals Change Toward Appeasement In Terrorist Policy
2007-06-01 — [WDC News Post] — American policy toward terrorism has shifted to appeasement and negotiation, viewed by terrorists as admitting defeat.
On Thursday, May 31, WorldNetDaily reported that Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno announced U.S. commanders In Iraq are being empowered to reach out for cease fire talks with militants, tribes, religious leaders and others, including insurgents and sectarian rivals. WND reported that Muhammad Abdel-El, a leader of the Popular Resistance Committees terror group, said Odierno’s announcement of truce talks with insurgents was “a big victory for the resistance.” Abdel-El said, “Americans are recognizing the resistance, the same resistance that they before called terrorism; now they are dealing with them, and this is the recognition of Iraqi resistance and recognition by the Americans of their own loss in Iraq.”
I wonder where bloodthristy freaks like Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson are on the “appeasement” issue?