| US forces have largely allied themselves with Kurdish and ISCI parties and their militias (technically “integrated” in the security forces and the Iraqi army), and have supported these groups in their efforts to suppress internal dissent. Ideologically, this has been presented as an effort to build a “moderate” base; in practice it has involved giving consent to much highhandedness by local authorities. Thus, repression and militia rule are not absent from the US-controlled parts Iraq . . . . |
First off, what do you make of "technically 'integrated'," Mr. Bones, at what does the puncuation sneer? Do the unhomogenized banditti themselves make a joke of pretending to be Marvin the ARVN, loyalist upholders of poor M. al-Málikí's neorégime? Dr. Virtue can't possibly mean that there exists no State secret police and army, or at least he can't deduce that from the proposition is there exists no proper State for Marvin to be a loyal agent or soldier of.
Then there is "internal dissent" not explicitly marked as a sarcasm or an Orwellism. That may or may not be what lesser mortals usually call insurgency or resistance or even (tusk, tusk!) terrorism. "Internal dissent" could mean the Rev. Señorito al-Sadr, though, plus perhaps the sectarians of rootless cosmopolitanism, Dr. ‘Alláwí and Dr. Chalabí &c. &c. considered as "dissent" because they don't actually belong to the new Gang of 4.001 (PUK, NDK, Da‘wa, Supreme Council, with M. T. al-Háshimí individually constituting the odd one-thousandth.) and as "internal" because they usually don't shoot or bomb the Crawford-blessed insiders. [1]
One does not have to be a berserk neo-Viking to mock "moderation," of course, the supralegal invasionites themselves have long since made an Orwellism out of that one. However, Dr. Virtue's peculiar notions of what lurks under the fig leaf of "moderation" are peculiar indeed: notably "giving consent to much highhandedness by local authorities." Myself, I've been thinking that it is almost the essence of the Big Management Party's immoderate militancy ever to aim as a total monopoly on highhandedness for themselves alone. Is not any highhandedness delegated to, or usurped by, mere "local authorities" automatically a lowering in handedness for the Party itself? How shall properly credentialled bigmanagers ever "give consent" to what looks like amountin' to managerial suicide?
But not so fast! Recently "local authorities" had become a very god word for the aggression-basers: "The spirit of al-’Anbár is the spirit of us all!" Why, recurrence to "local authorities" is expected to vindicate the Ever-Victorious Surge of '07™ not just by rank-and-file GOP geniuses, but by Rear-Colonel F. Kagan of A.E.I. himself, inventor (or discoverer) of le surgisme! Fat Freddy gets himself into some dialectical difficulties about a salvation (?) for his Boy and his Party comin' from somethin' they obviously only stumbled over by accident. That's the really significant part of Freddy's latest, but in connection with Dr. Virtue's latest, how about this?
| [B]y helping the Sunni community establish a legitimate local security force tied into the central government and both supported and advised by American troops, we are helping to establish the basis of long-term stability at the local level. |
Freddy of AEI and GOP has got, or Freddy thinks he has got, or Freddy pretends for agitprop purposes that he has got, "the local level" of Peaceful Freedumbia so safely enchained that it would be a bad joke to speak of highhandedness. Shackled to brave New Baghdád less significantly, enserfed to Château Kennebunkport and Rancho Crawford and Castle Cheney in all really crucial matters, what sort of a feudal wimp would aspire to become a "local authority" at all? The Freddy Kagan Anbarization System™ is still young, to be sure, so extremely young that it may not even be hatched!, is that what you object, Mr. Bones? Indeed, indeed, but I'm only trying to bring the FKAS into conjunction with the "Righteous Virtue System of Iraqi Essentialism," as it were, one paleface planmongerin' scheme with a different one. Maybe they're both Cludcuckooland, or maybe both nifty schemes are easily to be imposed. Maybe Freddy has a well neo-funded tank of thinkers and a Big Management Party behind all his schemin's permanently and a Sole Remainin' Hypowerpower for the moment, whereas the RV scheme has little going for it except its intrinstic righteousnesses and virtues, plus or minus the [exp. del.] Party of Islamic Fadíla down in the lower parts of the former Iraq. That's as may be. That's as we shall see. Do I look like a crystal ball, sir, that you should expect me to behave like one?
The Owl of Minerva and I don't know any better about what comes next than you, or R. Virtue, or F. Kagan do, Mr. Bones. We prefer to talk about what has definitely already happened. In odd disorderly times like the present, however, times prone to vigilante aggressions in gross violation of Rulalaw (and tertiary-educational self-awardings of the license to prophesy in gross violation of humility and/or professionalism), it can happen that things have happened already today that only tomorrow can sort out. And thus it is at the moment, Mr. Bones. Out in the former Iraq, almost everybody partisan thinks her team is winnin' big at the moment, except perhaps poor M. al-Málikí's team's fans, who console ourselves that basic democracy can't possibly lose in the long run, can it? To announce that somebody will prove mistaken under such circumstances is not sorcery or even proper prediction, I fear 'tis only logic.
And thus too in petto with R. Virtue and F. Kagan opinionating themselves about the "local authorities" of Occupied Mesopotamia in seemingly opposite directions. Logic knows already that they can't both be right -- unless perchance the Black Crow of partition were to show up unexpectedly and confound equally both the attempted impositions of Rear-Col. F. K. Tweedledumb at AEI and those of Dr. R. V. Tweedledee at NUPI.
If anybody really cares for "local authority" in the former Iraq -- a most improbable hypothesis! -- what she obviously ought to do is . . . .
. . . not so very obvious. She can, perhaps, pick which Grand Universal Juggernaut she wishes to sign slave with, the Kennebunkport-Crawfordite one, the Sunninterní or Arab Palace one, the Bin Ládin or takfírí one, the Najaf-Sístání-UIA one, the evil Qommie one. Unfortunately the Bolshevik Juggernaut option is no longer available, for that was in many ways an ideal choice: there not having been the slightest prospect of "Scientific Socialism" in the pre-formerized Iraq, to set up as a nominal Communist or Marxist in it was mostly to choose "none of the above Juggernauts," a very admirable choice substantively even if rather a confusing and off-putting one to context-free and clueless outsiders.
"None of the above Juggernauts" is not quite the same as "No Juggernauts at all," to be sure. As to the latter, well, I see that M. Hourani's book is still available. I'd draw attention especially to his dating the demise of exotic imported "liberalism" in the Greater Levant to precisely 1939. Much closer to the holy Homeland than Cairo and Beirut, that remains a very specious thesis, one as yet only "refuted" by Party bluster and wombscholarly self-esteem.
But God knows best.
____
[1] The renegade firebrand cleric's juvenile delinquents may be in violation of "internal" thus defined, however. That from time to time "elements of" the Mahdi Army shoot at Badr bandits is almost certainly the case, and it has been somewhat less persuasively alleged they attack paleface operatives of the extremist GOP as well. The latter class of armed bandits rather elude all coherent distinction of "internal" and 'external." Of course technically and legalistically Petraeus and Crockerius and all their Big Party betters are utterly external to the Gang of 4.001, yet untechnically and seriously the Gang of 4.001 are what the vulgate calls "in Rancho Crawford's back pocket," as internal as internal can be.
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