Accentuate the Negative

Is it good when sovereign nations try to set their own policies? I forget.

Jim VandeHei writes on A20:

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said in an interview yesterday that the United States could withdraw as many as 50,000 troops by the end of the year, declaring there are enough Iraqi forces trained and ready to begin assuming control in cities throughout the country.

After the White House and Pentagon were contacted for comment, however, a senior adviser to Talabani called The Washington Post to say Talabani did not intend to suggest a specific timeline for withdrawal. "He is afraid . . . this might put the notion of a timetable on this thing," the adviser said. "The exact figure of what would be required will undeniably depend on the level of insurgency [and] the level of Iraqi capability."

Talibani's prediction on withdrawing 50,000 troops by the end of the year sounds.... optimistic. Still I don't recall much coverage, not since the Iraqi election, when the U.S. and Iraqi authorities were in harmony.  That's part of the bad-news-from-Iraq problem I've commented on before: What's boring here is boring there, meaning routine acts of representative government like town council meetings put reporters to sleep in Des Moines and Baghdad. But the truth is that it's amazing when it happens in the Middle East, outside of Israel.

Why don't we see more reporting on successful cooperation between U.S. and Iraqi authorities? One reason, which I've also discussed before: Most Western reporters don't think they have a dog in that fight.