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Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Where have you gone, Tom Lehrer, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you
Posted by Jill | 6:57 AM


For might makes right
And 'til they've seen the light
They've got to be protected
All their rights respected
Till somebody we like can be elected




Just like here in the U.S., the Bush Junta believes that democracy and free elections are only a good thing when they produce the desired result. The Administration has been attempting to mine political benefit from the collective purple fingers of Iraqis going to the polls, but now that the new Iraqi premier isn't doing the Administration's bidding, suddenly they don't like democracy all that much:

The American ambassador has told Shiite officials that President Bush does not want the Iraqi prime minister to remain the country's leader in the next government, senior Shiite politicians said Tuesday.

It is the first time the Americans have directly expressed a preference in the furious debate over the country's top job, the politicians said, and it is inflaming tensions between the Americans and some Shiite leaders.

The ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the head of the main Shiite political bloc at a meeting on Saturday to pass on a "personal message from President Bush" to the interim prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said Redha Jowad Taki, a Shiite member of Parliament who was at the meeting.

Mr. Khalilzad said Mr. Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" Mr. Jaafari as the next prime minister, according to Mr. Taki, a senior aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite bloc. It was the first "clear and direct message" from the Americans on a specific candidate for prime minister, Mr. Taki said.


Why not just send the Iraqis a dead fish? That's what the Bush family's role models, the Corleones, would do.

This is yet another outcome of the Bush Administration's refusal to plan for postwar Iraq. I'm not an international affairs expert like Juan Cole, but even I knew that Iraq was an artificial construct, cobbled together by the British. If Iraq was anything, it was Yugoslavia, only more so. And for all the lofty talk of democracy, when you have multiple groups that hate each other, a unified government is impossible.

All you have to do is look to Washington, DC to see that it's true.
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