State Department Blog Declares "New Morning" in Iraq

"Today we have come out of the darkness into a new morning," says a new post about Iraq on the U.S. State Department's official blog.

The June 30, 2008 entry, titled "What They Said Couldn't Be Done," is written by John Matel, team leader of the Al Asad Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq. He writes, "The accomplishment of the United States, Coalition Forces and Iraqis is astonishing, especially when you consider the near-death experiences of 2006."

A description and evaluation of the Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team concept is in this report from the United States Institute of Peace. Matel also discusses the process here.

On June 27, Matel's DipNote entry was titled, "Persistence and Luck Pay Off in Iraq." In this post he wrote, "Leading experts and pundits told it straight-out that the United States was defeated. They were wrong, but they could have been right if we had acted on their advice. In other words, a lack of resolve on our part would have made their prophecies self-fulfilling. In the event, the United States stayed for the turn around."

These posts have attracted very few comments thus far, but I suspect they could touch off a rousing discussion in the blogosphere. Matel has responded to a couple of the current comments. And the thoughtful nature of his answers leads me to believe he could hold his own in a more incendiary blog battle.