Anyway, here's the donkeys' bouquet:
| The United Iraqi Alliance, a Shia coalition and the largest bloc in parliament, which includes Maliki's Da'wa party, agree that US troops need to bolster Iraqi forces and help defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to a pullout. "The Democrats are on the right path," said United Iraqi Alliance MP Kareem al-Enizi. "They understand the size of the American loss in Iraq and want to save the lives of their soldiers. The American soldiers can't do more than the Iraqi soldiers. With training and weapons, Iraqis will be capable of handling security." |
M. al-Enizi sounds pretty plausible about the future prospects of the former Iraq, but as you can see, he's more than a bit back-handed when it comes to praising the party of General Jackson: "Naturally, being what they are, their first thought is to save the lives of their soldiers!" Well, thanks a lot, of course, sir, but . . . .
And "the size of the American loss in Iraq"?
Did I sleep through a half dozen Cannaes and Gettysburgs and Waterloos that M. al-Enizi (ten thousand klicks away!) and the rest of my party here in the holy Heimatland know all about? That seems rather unlikely. To speak of "the American loss in Iraq" does not make much sense even in terms of M. al-Enizi's narrow self-interest. He appears to want many fewer armed paleface GOP extremists (and their Party paleface hirelin's) running around his country, but he also wants lots of financial and logistical support from Uncle Sam. That's reasonable enough from his point of view, and maybe even reasonable enough absolutely, but M. al-Enizi ought to worry that if he informs our poor Sam that the former Iraq has now become "an American loss," Sam might actually listen to him and then decide to cut his losses a little, as for instance by ditching M. al-Enizi, and the United Iraqi Alliance, and all the Green Zone collaborationist pols. and even "Iraq" itself. No great loss! That is to say, no great loss!
M. al-Enizi really ought to be more respectful. Uncle Sam is a Sole Remainin' Hyperpower -- nay, Sam is THE Sole Remainin' Hyperpower! Whatever the final score in the Crawford-Tikrit thug-on-thug OnePercenter dynasty grudge match, Sam will be SRH still, and the former Iraq will only be, at best, .... well, let's stipulate politely that it will be all that M. al-Enizi and the UIA would wish it to be, a very nice place to visit, a place, if God will, that one might even think of living in without being deranged or suicidal or on the payroll of some other Power's mukhabarát, yet still not quite up there in the holy Heimatland class as a Power, after all.
With M. al-Enayat "the size of the American loss" is to be presumed either a slip of the pen or an ignorance of the politics. However there are certain districts of Farther Cloudcuckooland where the bird-brained actually do nebulously think like that. How about this specimen, Mr. Bones?
| .... Republicans and Democrats both recognize deep down inside that complete military defeat will mean complete withdrawal, but they can't say that yet for domestic political reasons. |
As you can probably guess, Mr. Bones, the precincts of Farther Cloudcuckooland in question are overwhelmingly populated with armchair Sunni chauvinists and those who fellow-travel with armchair Sunni chauvinism and Sunnintern agitprop from the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust. "Iraq wins, America loses!" is a very peculiar sort of bumper sticker, scarcely one SUV in a thousand bearing a bumper sticker about the former Iraq and the Crawford aggression bears that one or anything equivalent to it. Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh are all in an imbecile wet-hen fuss about "America loses," but they would never dream that "Iraq" gains what GOP invasionism loses in this zero-sum game, they'd chalk up the supposed gains to Islamophalangitarianism or Globoterror or some other of their own pet hobgoblins.
Still, I suppose we might be less censorious about Dr. Birdbrain and his Sunninterni ideobuddies. After all, we really do recognize, do we not, Mr. Bones, that utter defeat would necessitate total withdrawal? All we really gotta do with Dr. Birdbrain is turn the crank's own crank the other way around: given that Responsible Nonwithdrawal is now patently -- not to say "blatantly" -- the wave of the future, it follows at once that there cannot have happened any "complete military defeat." Maybe we elderly slack off at times and even doze off, but we can be quite sure that we have not missed our Uncle Sam's neo-Iraqi Cannae or his neo-Iraqi Waterloo. If anything like that had happened, the militant extremist GOP would have been shoved out of its semiconquered neo-provinces already. Yet there they are bestridin' the bushogenic quagmire still, there they are, behold them! Behold them surgin' rampantly under the auspices of the Big Management Party's Leaders's fair-haired boy, Neocomrade Dr. Gen. D. Petraeus of West Point and Princeton! Behold Neocomrade Rear-Colonel Freddy Kagan of AEI expoundin' in every issue of the Weekly Standard how swell it's been goin', and then all the rest of the Bani Kagan shout "Alleluia! Amen!"!
Do you suppose Rome was like that after Cannae, Mr. Bones, or Paris after Waterloo, the least bit like Rio Limbaugh and Wingnut City are now? If so, you suppose very oddly. The jubilations of these cheapjack Boy-'n'-Party jubilators are indecorous and almost vomit-inducin', Mr. Bones, yet they'll serve as evidence that "complete military defeat" can only be regarded as an equal-but-opposite specimen of the poet's "Bilge, and party cries, and Man's incorrigible mind."
As to Real Policy and the underlying Correlation of Forces, an informal coöperation between M. al-Enazi's United Iraqi Alliance and Gen. Jackson's Democratic Party seems highly desirable to me, although I should admit that I rather mistrust my own judgment hereabouts. It's no trouble and scarcely even problematical to reciprocate "The Democrats are on the right path" with "The United Iraqi Alliance is on the right path," considering what other paths are available to be seriously recommended out there in that Kennebunkport-Crawford-blessed Land of Peace and Freedom. The path of the Free Kurds plainly leads out of the former Iraq altogether, and it's an excellent path for them, may Father Zeus and Ambassador Galbraith hasten their total and unconditional independence!
Meanwhile, back in the authentically neo-Iraqi neo-Iraq, there is the Path of the rootless cosmopolitan community, the Way of Dr. Chelabí and of Dr. ‘Alláwí . Would not that be a better Path than the U.I.A.'s, O Bones?
You must admit it has its attractions, Bones! How should it not, being essentially our own Jefferson-Jackson path exported to somewhere out east of Suez? I hesitate about the exportation angle, myself. Has not their Big Party neocomrade Herr Prof. Dr. Bernard Lewis proved that that as soon as Greater Levantines borrow anything whatsoever from Wunnerful US, they immediately wreck it or pervert it? Who can guess what Frankenstein monsters might emerge from under the overcoats of Mr. Jefferson and Gen. Jackson if our own stuff was simply translated from Boston in the 1770's to the invasionites' brave New Baghdád of 2003-2XXX?
Well, actually there is a certain amount of evidence about this question, and it suggests that in fact nothing ever emerges from under those overcoats at all. Donkey stuff, "liberalism," just does not "take" in the Greater Levant. M. Albert Hourani wrote an important book about the indigs' long exposure to it and the non-consequences thereof. Dr. Chelabí and Dr. ‘Alláwí run true to Houranian form, they don't "take' either in Peaceful Freedumbia, not even with all of Rancho Crawford's dynastic management skills and military might and taxpayer dollars and AEIdeologues and Heritagitarians and Hoovervillains to back the rootless cosmopolitans of "Iraq" up from afar. Whatever the merits of the product vended, why bother tryin' to vend, in the face of such absolute Sales Resistance as "liberalism" has consistently met with in the Greater Levant?
"If you can't lick 'em, join 'em" leads from there straight to M. al-Enizi, but I suppose it won't do to pass the former Sunni Ascendancy in "Iraq" over as if it had never existed, or as if the present political landscape in Peaceful Freedumbia is not littered with zillions of shreds and smithereens left over from the Good Old Days. To talk about a "Way of the Sunnis" in the former Iraq as of 23 July 2007 would be only cheap sarcasm. One does not, being a donkey, make fun of political and military and intellectual cripples. One averts one's gaze, one hurries on back to M. al-Enizi to say "The United Iraqi Alliance is on the right path," gracefully returning his compliment and hopefully concealing one's own misgivings a bit better than M. al-Enizi concealed his about us.
There's a very plausible coöperation here between unitedly allied neo-Iraqis under the yoke of Crawford and us palaeo-Democrats in America, but there are also very obvious dangers on both "our" Tikrit-Sunnintern flank and "our" Kennebunkport-Crawford flank. The thing is worth doing, and I'm all for doing it, myself, yet if 'twere done, 'twould have to be very, very gingerly done -- "Softly, softly catchee monkey"! UIA and "Democrat Party" may be equally obnoxious to external thugs and thugmongers, but "we" do not share exactly the same enemies, not to speak of sharing exactly the same qawá'id, "principles." One might say we speak different languages, perhaps. And yet "we" do agree that principles are language-independent. I think.
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