(Via PR Watch.)

In closing, it is clear that the Iraqi people are quite eager for the US to lighten its military footprint in Iraq. More importantly it appears that they are eager to regain their sense of sovereignty. As long as they do not have this sense, they are likely to continue to have a fundamentally hostile attitude toward all aspects of the US presence in Iraq. However, as Iraqis gradually regain this sense that their country belongs to them, they will likely move toward wanting some ongoing relationship with the US, both economic and military, to help them find their way out of this troubled period of their long history.

I have no time for Russia or Vladimir Putin (whose bloody record in Chechnya is very clear).

And I quite agree: Russia’s invasion of Georgia is about oil, energy, geopolitics etc, etc.

But in the same breath she declares the US invasion of Iraq was about “overthrowing a homicidal dictatorship in Iraq”. This is absurd.

Iraq was also about oil, energy, geopolitics, etc, etc. But it was for Our Side rather than Their Side.

She thinks she is onto a winner by attacking the anti-war movement for not protesting. She might have a mild point. But she forgets that people in the UK (and US) protested against the invasion because their governments were directly involved. That is how democracy is meant to work. (Sort of.)

Maybe what really upsets Daley, is that lots of people in the run up to the Iraq invasion were not fawning over Our Dear Leaders, like they appear* to do in Russia; and like she did in the run up to and the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

*I don’t read Russian, so I can only go by English language media reports which suggest Putin enjoyed extremely high approval ratings as president.