Candid satellite

No matter how the story is spun, tracking Iraqi army movements with American spy satellites does not suggest a relationship built on mutual trust.

Certainly there is no love lost between supposed allies. U.S. forces rolled through the Iraqis in 2003, and then dissolved the military and sent everyone into unemployment and onto insurgent recruiters.

Attempts to rebuild the Iraqi army have been expensive for U.S. taxpayers, and a work of evident futility for trainers. Until recently, Iraqis had been reluctant to fight or even show up.

All that changed in March, the Los Angeles Times reports, when the Iraqis undertook large scale operations in Basra. The U.S. military was completely caught off guard, but quickly changed the subject. They heaped praise upon the Iraqis for a newfound ability to marshal and deploy troops and fight effectively against a potent militia force.

The U.N. mandate for a U.S. presence in Iraq expires at the end of the year. Reports from U.S.-Iraqi negotiations suggest a new long-term security agreement is unlikely. Last month, Iraq's prime minister was in Iran, where the talk was of a new defense relationship between neighbors and former enemies.

Resorting to spy satellites renews the feeling of the U.S. on the outside looking in at a country and political dynamic it has never understood.