Coming Out Of Denial

From the WaPo:

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

So it wasn't really about WMDs, or about Terrorism, and now it's not about Democracy either. That's three strikes, George.

U.S. officials say no turning point forced a reassessment. "It happened rather gradually," said the senior official...

The goal now is to ensure a constitution that can be easily amended later so Iraq can grow into a democracy, U.S. officials say.

But what about them darned insurgent terrrrrsts? What about staying till the mission is complete?

"There has been a realistic reassessment of what it is possible to achieve in the short term and fashion a partial exit strategy," Yaphe said. "This change is dictated not just by events on the ground but by unrealistic expectations at the start."

Washington now does not expect to fully defeat the insurgency before departing, but instead to diminish it, officials and analysts said. There is also growing talk of turning over security responsibilities to the Iraqi forces even if they are not fully up to original U.S. expectations, in part because they have local legitimacy that U.S. troops often do not.

"We've said we won't leave a day before it's necessary. But necessary is the key word -- necessary for them or for us? When we finally depart, it will probably be for us," a U.S. official said.

But... but... what about the USA's $20 billion "investment" in the Iraqi economy?

"The most thoroughly dashed expectation was the ability to build a robust self-sustaining economy. We're nowhere near that. State industries, electricity are all below what they were before we got there," said Wayne White, former head of the State Department's Iraq intelligence team...

Bush first campaigned for President in a bus labelled "Great Expectations." It seems those expectations have been significantly lowered by those facing the reality of everyday Iraq, even if Bush himself still hasn't got the message.