Never success; only respite.

I had to comment on this report by Paul Reynolds. Readers may know I'm not fond of Paul, because he usually manages to smuggle into his reporting things that are purely opinionated and cynically destructive.

There're a couple of things here. First of all he calls the early handover of power to Iraqis 'a rare propaganda coup'. Since it was Reynolds who has spent the last few months doubting the possiblity of handing over power, you'd think he might recognise that this could be part of a successful mission and not merely propaganda- but no.

Secondly, he has a problem with the handover taking place at a time which coincides with the G8 summit. He says 'some bright spark' must have thought it up. I'd have thought it was stating the politically obvious that when you need support from the world community you emphasise your good intentions at the maximal time. In any case I'm sure this was not the only thing considered.

He also finds time to say 'the hurried nature of the move is an indication by itself that not all is well in the state of Iraq.'. Well, we would never have gone there if the garden had been rosy, now, would we? The idea that we wouldn't in some sense have to play nip and tuck with reactionaries or terrorists in Iraq would falsify part of the case for war- and you can bet Reynolds would be pointing that out now if things were totally calm.

It's not until half way down the article that Reynolds deigns to mention that 'There is also one other benefit. The sudden move could disrupt whatever plans the insurgents have to mark the 30 June themselves'. Sorry Paul, but this was not a side effect, it was likely the prime motivation behind the move. No one likes to get bombed on their special day. You just can't handle the fact that your enemy the Bush administration (or perhaps- and I'm trying not to follow Reynolds and discount them- the fledging Iraqi Government) has proved itself so shrewd on this occasion.

The rest of the article sounds more reasonable, but is still questionable. He says, in a tone which makes the Green Zone sound like the Kremlin of times past, 'propaganda coups tend not to last unless they are based on fundamentals'.

Now I think it's clear we're dealing with a diehard opponent of the war. When he says 'fundamentals' he's drawing us all back to the beginning of the war and saying 'the fundamentals were wrong- so they still are'. All the problems we face now you could trace back to Reynolds' beliefs at the beginning: that Saddam had a greater legitimacy than any government that could be installed by US intervention.

That's just my supposition, but it's the only way I can understand his negativism in the face of what would seem to be success for the coalition in Iraq.