Remember Iraq?

Reuters is carrying a story, picked up (and buried) by Drudge, titled "Iraq ready for "final" battle with al Qaeda: PM" - anybody remember when Iraq was an election topic; or for that matter, a news topic?

With the furor over the wide-open Presidential election, one might expect that the 800 pound foreign policy gorilla that is Iraq would be loudly exerting its presence. But, as some readers have emailed, we see quite the opposite - we are instead treated to a series of variously relevant, or intelligible, economy prescriptions. (Warning: Krugman Alert!) Perhaps this is a consequence of recent economic insecurity and recession fears; perhaps talking about people's money is good politics - if the so-called "bipartisan stimulus package" tells us anything, giving people money you don't have remains a sound path to re-election. But I suspect the real reason is already clear from the Reuters article:

Iraqi security forces have begun a "decisive" final offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq to push the Sunni Islamist militants out of their last major stronghold in the north, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Friday...

"We defeated al Qaeda, now there is just Nineveh province where they escaped to, and Kirkuk," Maliki said, referring to another northern city.

Of course, one would expect Prime Minister Maliki to be optimistic about his country's security, but I think it speaks volumes about our own politicians, and our news media, that the current developments and trends in Iraq are being so underreported. Once the rhetorical bloviating over the failed "political benchmarks" (a legitimate, but I believe limited, critique) proved ineffective, opponents of the war and the current strategy instead adopted an attitude of blasé ignorance, and the topic has slipped from the national conscious. Conveniently, this served the dual purposes of both neutralizing the successes as a campaign issue, and cementing public sentiment on the topic before so many positive developments could have influenced it. At this rate, AQI will be gone and there will be nobody there to celebrate - perhaps al Qaeda in Iraq needs its own stimulus package...