Reversing a Bush blunder

As violence in Iraq has dropped from holy-fucking-shit to holy-shit, thanks to many factors, the left has been quick to note--correctly, I might add--that any reduction in violence is illusory until concrete steps toward national reconciliation are achieved. President Bush likes to gloss over this lack of progress by spinning a bottom-up story of reconciliation. A bottom-up story that was written by arming the Sunnis to the teeth. An arming which has laid the groundwork for an intensification of Iraq's civil war once the US ends its occupation. All that being said, and putting aside the utter illegality and outright outrageousness of going to war in the first place, the news today that Iraq's parliament agreed to reverse one of the Bush administration's biggest mistakes following the war, de-Baathification, has to be seen as positive. Credit must be given to the Iraqi parliament for coming together and getting this done.

Will re-Baathification be enough to keep the Sunnis invested in the national government? Will it be enough to encourage the Sunnis to pick up their briefcases instead of their guns? It's possible and encouraging. However, I would bet, an oil sharing law, that excludes all US interests, would help a whole lot more.

Update: The always insightful Cernig continues the thought.