As usual, the summatorialist at Slogger City can't find much news about the former Iraq in the neoliberateds' own press, but he can go on at length with some help from the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, today starring Al-Hayát, which said that
| [T]he IAF suspended its boycott as part of a larger political deal, brokered by the US, and intended to expand the scope of Sunni participation in the political system. The London-based newspaper said that, according to “observers,” the Maliki government struck a “deal” with the parties of the opposition, “with American pressure,” in order to guarantee the support of said parties for “the passing of several laws ... chiefly the oil law and the de-Ba'thification law.” The government, and the US behind it, is eager to promulgate these strategic legislations “in order to achieve a larger proportion of the 18 benchmarks set by the US Congress (to gauge the success of the Surge Plan,)” claimed the newspaper. In Al-Hayat’s scenario, the Sadrists and the IAF will allow the passing of these strategic laws in exchange for certain political gains. The newspaper was not very clear, however, in describing what the quid pro quo entailed. For one, the paper claimed, the original conflict between the Sunni coalition and the government (the parliament’s decision to unseat IAF’s Mahmud al-Mashhadani as its Speaker), will be resolved by “expanding the powers of the presidential council,” which will allow the Sunni vice-president, Tariq al-Hashimi, a larger role to play in executive decisions. Soon after these reforms come into effect, the paper continued, the IAF will choose a replacement for Mashhadani. Second, al-Hayat said, the attributes of the (Shi'a) Prime Minister will be reduced along with his influence over the Executive, which has been a long-standing demand by the Sunni front. |
It would be interesting to learn exactly how the Sunni International (exclusive of the "Iraq" Sunnintern outlet) gauges the Surge of '07™ and the benchmarkmongers as well as the benchmarkees. I fancy that over at the Supreme Presidium the commissars are feeling a little swindled by the militant GOP at this point. They never did get to be half of Bush's brain, as I thought they might when the Surge was but a pup. It looks as if "David" (Dr. Gen. Petraeus of West Point and Princeton) has expanded to fill the whole available vacancy. DP's surgent reasons were originally compatible with the surgent reasons of the Sunnintern, which would have made the conjectured temporary alliance feasible, but naturally they were never identical, for DP is not interested in any sort of faith-basin' but his own technical kind.[1]
The Sunnintern's enthusiasm for MacNamaran Counterinsurgency, considered abstractly, is great, but not infinite. Above all, enthusiasm cannot be uniform and consistent. Having subjects of their own to keep down, the Arab Palace branch is naturally attracted. Knowing what they'd be subjected to if they didn't stick to the UK and the more respectable parts of Beirut, the Street Arab branch is rather less keen on it. Concretely, however, the Surge of '07™ (as originally projected), that mighty Petraeo-MacNamario-Crawfordian shotgun, was to have one barrel aimed at the Rev. Señorito al-Sadr and heretical "militias" more generally (plus perhaps also the Safavids lurking sinister in the background), the other barrel at Ba‘thís and takfírís, who, although nominal coreligionists, were not so congenial as to be indispensible.[2]
But then only one barrel went off -- and that is the essence of this phase of the Occupation Policy Crisis. "David" advances from glorious victory to glorious victory, buying up every last shaykh on the market in al-’Anbár and elsewhere, or so the Wingnut City Daily Bodycount reports with partisan glee. Nobody at all reports that Muqtadá and the Twelver militias have been clobbered the way the Sunnintern gentry were led to expect that they would be clobbered. Why, if the AAPT knows what it is talking about in the story summatorialized, the Sadr Tendency have now become virtual good guys, as far as Rancho Crawford is concerned! The Sunni International would be only human to feel a little miffed at the way things have surged out against them. Strictly speaking, the Republican Party extremists never actually made any promises, to be sure, but still ...! [3]
Anything that is bad for poor M. al-Málikí is bound to please the Sunnintern, I daresay, so the particular corrupt bargain that Al-Hayát writes a scenario about would not be all bad by any means. Naturally they'd be pleased if there were fewer anti-Ba‘th noises coming out of the Green Zone. The oil bill is harder to gauge: is it more important to Sunninternis that their coreligionists in "Iraq" be assured a proportionate share of the loot, or that strict central control be insisted upon, even though for the moment poor M. al-Málikí is still deplorably at the centre? Most likely the latter, although I would not claim to be sure about this point.
As the summatorialist remarks, "The newspaper was not very clear, however, in describing what the quid pro quo entailed." About par for the Sunnintern, that would be! -- a clear enough idea of what they'd like, but only murk and mist as to what the other side might like, or what they'd be prepared to relinquish. In this case, though, why not guess that permitting poor M. al-Málikí to continue to be addressed as M. le président du Conseil des ministres is quite enough quid pro quo to be getting on with?
So far we have discussed only possible Corrupt Bargain A. At Slogger City they know, or anyway they scribble, about a more comprehensive Corrupt Bargain B also:
| The Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper, which toes a leftist/Arab Nationalist political line, had a more “interesting” explanation for the IAF return. According to the newspaper, an American-brokered deal will give the Sunnis the presidency in the future, while the post of the Parliament Speaker will be turned over to the Kurds. Al-Akhbar said that, according to “sources close to the centers of decision-making in Iraq,” the political institutions of the country will undergo a “radical change,” entailing the restructuring of the three presidencies (the President, the Prime Minister and the Speaker) and their attributes. The paper added that the coming reforms were designed “by the occupational authority, in conjunction with the UN mission and the ruling establishment in Iraq.” In addition to the Sunnis “recouping” the President’s post, al-Akhbar confirmed al-Hayat’s report regarding an expansion in the attributes of the President. These reforms, the paper explained, seek to satisfy Sunni demands for greater participation, “give an increased impetus for the political process, and decrease the intensity of the resistance in Iraq.” What proves the existence of a “deal” behind the IAF return, al-Akhbar said, is the fact that the controversial Mahmud al-Mashhadani headed the last parliamentary session without any signs of protest from the political parties that had voted him out a few weeks back. |
That nifty scheme is so exceedingly Lebanese-ey, so seedier-than-thou, that one hesitates to believe it is true, even though the AAPT's Beirut branch and the Sunnintern's Street Arab branch vouch for it. There is/was of course nothing in Khalílzád Pasha's "constitution" for the happy Land of Peace and Freedom about the theocommunitarian identity of particular officers of state.[4] (Three guesses which direction that brainstorm invaded from!)
But let's suspend our disbelief, should we have any, and wonder whether the nifty scheme could work. Can "the occupational authority," even "in conjunction with the UN mission and the ruling establishment in Iraq," really pull off a trick like that one?
Probably not. Almost certainly not. Corrupt Bargain B simply does not address the true underlying difficulties of the miltant GOP's semiconquered Mesopotamian provinces. Tinkerin' with "the political institutions" along those lines would rather aggravate the Khalílzádian gridlock than obviate it -- a feat I had not thought possible, yet here it is! "Restructure" the next neorégime's executive arm as a faith-quota'd Gang of Four and you're only more guaranteed than ever that the next neorégime's executive arm cannot possibly be a genuine power center. If that's the kind of thing you like, O Occupational Authorities, why not impose the ancient Polish Constitution on the wretched indigs in toto and allow any quasideputy to "explode" the whole quasigovernment anytime she pleases?
" Nie pozwalam! Zlota wolnosc!! Freedom Means Peace!!!"
But of course "the political institutions" are not fundamental in the bushogenic quagmire any more than the Khalílzád Konstitution is fundamental. The real quicksand that the House of Occupation has been erected on consists in the utter disintegration of the Arab Sunni theocommunity that followed overthrow of the age-old Sunni Ascendancy. The newspaper account of Corrupt Bargain B vaguely mumbles "seek to satisfy Sunni demands for greater participation," and the key point can be phrased that way if anybody likes: "Sunni demands" are not going to be met by Corrupt Bargain B. The TwentyPercenters don't want "greater participation," they want their natural mastery, their Sunni Ascendancy, back. "All or Nothing!, Rule or Ruin!" -- that's the ticket, and since in their present total incoherence as a theocommunity, the TwentyPercenters of the former Iraq couldn't possibly rule, Ruin awaits.
Exactly what shape Ruin will present herself in is all that is left to be discussed. Perhaps there will be flat-out partition, locking them up in a cage with nobody to be natural masters of but themselves. Perhaps there will be some hillbillies-and-heretics travesty of an "Iraq" that the TwentyPercenters are trapped inside forever. Perhaps (but this scenario seems less likely) there will be a Polish-style partition, partition plus annexation, with the TwentyPercenters eventually finding themselves subjects of His Hashemite Majesty or of les altesses royales du Ryad or some other Sunninterni neighbor.
All the King's horses and all the King's men -- that is to say, even "the occupational authority, in conjunction with the UN mission and the ruling establishment in Iraq" -- could not avert Ruin from the TwentyPercenters except by a sudden mass conversion to theological correctness that would require supernatural intervention. Few aggressors in history have ever been less competent at managing their conquests than the aforesaid Occupational Authority, yet the bushogenic quagmire would perplex the aggression competence of Jenghiz Khan himself, because what is called for virtually amounts to being competent to make two plus two be some number other than four.
Can't be done. Not gonna happen. Force can't do it, and Fraud can't do it either.
____
[1] "MacNamara Saves!" is a curious faith to base any thing on, even a technical thing, seeing that the guru selected failed to save himself. Still, who knows for sure? perhaps if Sen. Humphrey had been elected in 1968, and the whizkids had had more time, and . . . .
[2] Judging from the experiences of unzionated Palestine, I'd venture (or perhaps "gauge") that it is pretty well impossible for one to be so congenial to the Sunnintern that they won't let one down, probably sooner rather than later. That is why the Sunnintern outlet in the former Iraq must be treated separately: it is, so to speak, the leg caught in the trap that the jackal may feel obliged to chew off to get the rest of herself free. On Thursday we had certain theologically correct neo-Iraqi Arabs complaining to the Guardian about being nibbled at:
| "We are the only resistance movement in modern history that has received no help or support from any other country," Omary declares. "The reason is that we are fighting America." |
Later on in the same press release,
| The plan is to hold a congress of the seven groups to announce the front's formation and then move towards the establishment of some form of public presence outside Iraq, though it is hard to see any state being prepared to risk the wrath of the US by hosting such an outfit. "It would need UN protection," Zubeidy suggests. |
The founding fathers of POIR, the Political Office for the Iraqi Resistance, seem to me a bit naïve in some respects, including the United Nations respect, but at least they are not such fools as to expect anything from the Arab League, which stands to the real Sunnintern about as the UN does to "the international community."
[3] The Boy-'n'-Party perps' side of this sad tale of semibetrayal is unlikely to be of much interest to the Sunnintern and the AAPT, and the chances that such omphaloscopic folks will be edified by finding themselves the jilted instead of the jilters for once are negligible.
Students of real policy may want to notice that the Sunnintern never had anything solid to offer the aggressors and occupationists of Crawford. I had conjectured that the vacuum between the ears of George XLIII would suck them in as well as Dr. Gen. David of WP&P and Rear-Col. Freddy of AEI. There was never any question of the Sunninternis thrusting themselves in "proäctively." Perhaps they lied to the militant GOP that they could turn off the insurgency / resistance / guerilla / terrorism in the former Iraq anytime they chose. Perhaps they did not bother to lie, whether because the falsehood was so patent that even a GOP genius might detect it, or, more likely, because such a lie invited a response to the Arab Palace branch of the Sunnintern along the lines of "So why haven't you stopped it already? We thought you guys were supposed to be our allies, for Christ's sake! Don't you remember how many dollars we've thrown at you?" And so forth, and so on.
Be that as it may, the Sunni International never had anything positive to offer the Busheviki beyond a definite idea of what they'd like to see happen in the Greater Levant at a time when the occupation policy of Khalílzád Pasha had been judged a failure down at the ranch. That was also a time when the abominable Hambakers were insolently threatening to shove their product into the post-Zalmáyan void, a product instantly detestable to unilateral cowpoker vigilantes. Unlike Sunninterni aliens, the ISG/CFR "bipartisan foreign-policy élite" possess a certain amount of traction in Beltway City DC, if not at Crawford TX, so they can, on occasion, push themselves in as well as get sucked in. Indeed, they appear to be doing some pushing at the moment. The idea of Congress solemnly announcing that the occupation therapy recommendations of the Hambakerites are the law of the land is about as absurd as political absurdity ever gets in the Holy Homeland, even in the silly season. All the same, that such a joke could ever be cracked at all may indicate which way the wind is blowing.
(How do the Sunninternis and the AAPT gauge the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, I wonder? Perhaps we shall have an opportunity to find out. Meanwhile it seems safe to conjecture that they must like it less than their own stuff, for after all, of whom is that not the case? As regards the points conventional wisdom mentions most frequently, talking to Syria is perhaps mildly welcomed, talking to the evil Qommies is fort mauvais, and the notion of having an International Congress impose upon the inhabitants of the former Iraq what the militant GOP has signally failed to impose is perhaps mildly unwelcome. Unless perchance the Sunnintern deludes itself that it would have a major rôle in determing what is to be imposed by "the international community." But God knows best.)
[4] The word "constitution" does occur in today's Slogger City summatorial, as it happens, it even occurs twice, but only in a completely different connection, about a referendum on Kirkuk. The Sunnintern and the AAPT evidently consider constitutionalism unimportant in the former Iraq, and they are well warranted in so doing, I fear. Corrupt Bargain B would certainly, and Corrupt Bargain A very probably, call for an amendment or a whole series of amendments in any genuinely constitutional State.
Invasion-language commentators, who mostly take genuine constitutionalism for granted, usually fashion a benchmark for themselves and their neo-Iraqi subjects out of formally revising the Khalílzád Konstitution so as to provide scads and scads of affirmative action for all those sore oppressed Arabophone Sunnis. Nevertheless, the whole ethos and ambience of that assumption is radically alien to the Greater Levant, where everybody (except the Jewish Statists) has a constitution, but nobody pays any serious attention to it.
It would be just as well not to bother to engage in pious make-believe about this.
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