Liberal Talk Radio

Remember that story we all read a while back about how the Sunni tribal chiefs were so sick of al Qaeda they were siding with the U.S. to fight terrorists? Remember how awesome that sounded at the time?

Well, it looks like al Qaeda got the memo, too:

More than 40 people died today in a wave of suicide bombings across Iraq, including an attack on a hotel in Baghdad where a group of sheiks opposed to militants linked to Al Qaeda was holding a tribal conference.

The bombing at the Mansour Hotel, which is also headquarters to several news organizations, killed 12 people and wounded 18. At least four sheiks were among those killed, news agencies reported.

The sheiks are members of Anbar Awakening, a group of Sunni Arab tribal leaders and former insurgents opposed to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The sheiks’ group has joined forces with police units backed by the United States to fight Al Qaeda, prompting a power struggle in the region.

And there you have it, the Anbar Awakening joins the heap of bright spots in Iraq that have faded away like a desert mirage. At this point, I don’t know what else can be done. As soon as any group does something positive in Iraq (or anywhere, for that matter), the U.S. tries to back that group, and instantly the group is either discredited or actively targeted for having associated with us. The American brand has become so toxic that everything we touch turns to shit, to paraphrase Tony Soprano.

We can’t change this dynamic in Iraq, no matter how many years we keep 150,000 soldiers and marines driving around the desert blowing things up and waiting to be blown up. When politicians say we need a “political solution” in Iraq, not a military one, it’s easy to dismiss it as cliche. But it’s also true.