The Abyss of Defeat

Iraq's Maliki threatens to bar Sadr from vote - 7 Apr 2008 at 8:20am - BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's prime minister raised the stakes in his showdown with followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, saying in an interview broadcast on Monday they would be barred from elections unless their militia disbands.

Is this move making political reconciliation more likely, or less?

McCain: Iraq No Longer Abyss of Defeat - 7 Apr 2008 at 8:24am - WASHINGTON (AP) -- Disregarding a serious flare-up of violence, Republican presidential candidate John McCain says the United States is "no longer staring into the abyss of defeat" in Iraq, opening a campaign week that will draw him and his Democratic opponents back to Washington to question commanding Gen. David Petraeus about the conduct of the unpopular war.

Is McCain saying that the U.S. was at some point staring into the abyss of defeat? I don't recall his ever having thus characterised the conflict.

Thought for the day:
All great truths begin as blasphemies. -George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Annajanska (1919)