Max Weber's Sunday Morning Service

Rather than cast pearls before aardvarks, Mr. Bones, I think I'll set my miniature Statist florilegium down here with you.

(1) Former Iraqi Premier Iyad Allawi said matters in Iraq "are getting out of the authority's hands five years after changing the former regime," warning that "the political quota system and militia policies would double the bloodshed in the country. Iraq, after five years, is still a state without institutions. The militias continue to pervade the government machinery and the political quota system is still the key factor in the government's activities. (...) These entities, whether inside or outside the state apparatus, are illegal, and their emergence is a logical outcome of the militia policies."


(2) A new assessment of U.S. policy in Iraq by (...) the U.S. Institute of Peace (...) [preaches] "Rather than trying to resolve long-term, controversial political issues about the nature of the Iraqi state, the U.S. could let those questions linger and instead work on governing capacity building at the provincial and local levels and cultivating new, local leaders (...) Reductions in troop levels will likely result in some degree of chaos and violence no matter what. The decentralized, fragmented political dynamic in Iraq cannot be reversed."


(3) [The Arab Advocate advocates] "The US occupier and Iran have destroyed the state of Iraq and turned it into a playground where both sides compete for influence while the Iraqi people continue to suffer under horrific conditions. Meanwhile sectarian gangsters in Iraq -- believers in 'Shi'itism' much more than Iraqi nationalism (a minority among Iraqis and Shia) -- continue their simultaneous, self-serving collaboration with the 'Great Satan' and Iran both of which share common objectives in the territories that comprised the former state of Iraq, and have much more in common with each other than they do with any of their shared puppets."


(4) Hath not Himself said, with emphasis in the original, Politischer Verband soll ein Herrschaftsverband dann und insoweit heißen, als sein Bestand und die Geltung seiner Ordnungen innerhalb eines angebbaren geographischen Gebiets kontinuierlich durch Anwendung und Androhung physischen Zwangs seitens des Verwaltungsstabes garantiert werden. Staat soll ein politischer Anstaltsbetrieb heißen, wenn und insoweit sein Verwaltungsstab erfolgreich das Monopol legitimen physischen Zwanges für die Durchführung der Ordnungen in Anspruch nimmt." ?