The quagmirists have basically surrendered the view that the Iraqi insurgency is unwinnable. Even Senator Kennedy has ceded this point, and there is little talk of Vietnams or military quagmires. Only the most entrenched antiwarriors are holding out hope for failure in Iraq. The new rallying point for the negativists is the current Iraqi political situation and specifically the assembly’s inability to form a government.

On March 29^th, Time Magazine’s Tony Karon reports on A Power Vacuum in Iraq?, with the byline How rules designed to prevent domination hobble the creation of a new government. In the process of building his bleak case for the future of the Iraqi government, Mr. Karon cites several inaccurate “facts”, such as referring to the current interim government as the “U.S.-appointed government”. He’s wrong on this point, as the Iraqi representatives overrode the United Nations representative and appointed the interim government. The Coalition Provisional Authority had no say in this matter. Mr. Karon dismally concludes:

“A majority of Iraqis voted for the promise of change, choosing an alliance that promised peace, security, jobs, reconstruction and a timetable for U.S. withdrawal. So far, they're not seeing much progress on any of those fronts. Now the chemistry of post-Saddam Iraq may be growing even more volatile than it was before the vote.”

The volatility among the pundit class certainly has increased. On March 30^th, Caryle Murphy from the Washington Post weighs in with an equally negative assessment of the Iraqi political negotiations in an article titled Two Months In and Still Foundering, with the byline Iraqi Assembly Again Fails to Elect Speaker or Fill Other Key Positions. Those hapless Iraqi rubes just can’t do anything right, and even (gasp!) closed a session of parliament:

The session was closed so Iraq's newly minted politicians could once again find a way out of an embarrassing failure to start forming the country's first freely elected government. Two months after the assembly was elected, negotiations among the various religious and ethnic groups appear to be increasingly bogged down, as politicians bicker over who will fill top posts.

This utterly depressing view is followed by a plethora of man-on-the-street interviews of Iraqis expressing their impatience, and this predictive gem; “Talks are unlikely to progress much in the next few days.”

On April 1^st, Juan Cole of the increasingly humorously named blog Informed Comment writes that “The Government is Not Even Close to being Formed” (hat tip to Armed Liberal at Winds of Change). This is but one of many uninformed comments issued about Iraq lately by Professor Cole. To him, intervention in Iraq has been a failure from day one, and there is no reason to change this now.

Perhaps Karon, Caryle and Cole should have held their tongues for just a couple of more days before declaring a political quagmire. News from Iraq is an impasse has been overcome, and Sunni Arab Hajen al-Hassani has been chosen the Speak of Parliament. It is believed Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, will become President and Ibrahim al-Jafari, a Shiite, will become Prime Minister. Mohammed from Iraq the Model reports Mr. al-Hassani is looking past the insurgency to address problems of corruption, and crime in Baghdad is down by 40% over the past several months.

Just five days after the assault on Iraqi political process, Tony Karon’s theory on “a power vacuum in Iraq” is hobbled, Caryle Murphy’s claim of an "embarrassing failure" is increasingly bogged down and foundering, and Juan Cole’s prediction of “the government is not even close to being formed” is becoming a distant memory. These quagmires are getting shorter and shorter.