Swell Progress In Iraq

The Pentagon is really pushing a story that the Iraqi government is successfully recruiting insurgents into the military, co-opting the insurgency. As usual, there's a bit more to the story:

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that PM al-Maliki has taken the controversial decision to recruit 18,000 members of Shiite militias into the Iraqi government security forces. (In fact, the Iraqi military has de facto been recruiting a lot of Shiite militiamen anyway).

You have to wonder if this step is intended to offset the American military's pressure to recruit Sunni tribesmen and neighborhood volunteers into the security forces.

Aljazeera is reporting that Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashimi [Kurdish] has come out vigorously denouncing al-Maliki for this move.

This could easily be a counter move preparation for the coming civil war in Iraq (after the U.S. leaves). It's also an old story as most of the Iraq police force and military has been infilitrated by insurgents for some time.

I stand by my contention that Iraqi insurgents (on all sides) see the writing on the wall of an American evacuation eventually. Everyone is keeping their powder dry and using the time to recruit, arm and train for that eventual all out war for control of Iraq.