Rebuilding

I’ve been tending to stay away from serious Iraq posts for a while, for a variety of reasons. First off, I’m feeling a bit burnt-out over the whole thing. Secondly, a lot of the rhetoric being slung around out there is still stuck in January, debating whether a war should be fought at all. Thirdly, there’s so much stuff coming to light about Iraqi government horrors and French (et al.) collusion in the whole mess that I can hardly keep up, and, frankly, I don’t want to risk an aneurysm by dwelling on it too much. And, finally, a lot of the current political goings-on over there are complex and uncertain enough, full of he-said-she-said and knee-jerk blame and hidden agendas that it’s unclear what’s A Major Thing to Worry About, and what’s Ruffled Feathers Du Jour.

Be that as it may, off to the east, there’s Afghanistan. And things there are either progressing along as well as can be expected, or else are sunk in a quagmire of inaction and mismanagement, depending on who you talk to and whether they simply want to blame the US for everything. But the US isn’t the only folks calling the shots there — are the people calling for the UN to come in and take over the Iraq reconstruction following how things are going in Afghanistan?