But come along, sir, do thee want ‘Iraqland’? With that ludicrously alien ‘q’ dead in the middle and never an ‘u’ to keep it company? Try to be serious, sir. One might as well set up to patronise "the plain people of Xzajjun" or some other dysphonious planet invented by the tin-earred sciencefictionist. Plain people cannot exist on Xzajjun. Plain people can scarcely exist in Erewhon, for Zeus’ sake! Although to be sure, their lives would have been even more complicated and elitist still, had their lives not-happened in some puristical *Erehwon.
If we are to follow in the path of Myles na gCopaleen, sir, -- him of the admirably Sassenach phony monnicker!", -- and to follow that path is my current resolve, sir! --, [0] we may not unreasonably require that our rhetorical patronisees inhabit a place with a plain name. The Plain of Jars, for instance, although that particular slot is already taken. MnagC could have occasional fun with his PP considered as denizens of *Eerie, or whatever it was that the alleged indigs used to call their Sore State of Errin’ back in good king Devil’s golden days, but if that sort of thing had been allowed to be more than occasional, he would not have been plain Brian O’Nolan / Myles na gCopaleeen / Flann O’Brien / Brian Ó Nualláin, he would have bordered on being James Joyce. [1] [2]
So forget ‘Iraqland"! If ‘Irockland’ still seems a bit unplain, sir, just think of it written as ‘iRockland’ to rhyme with ‘iPod’ and thee will be in like Flynn, sir. Thee can hardly account ‘Rockland’ less congenial to the dumb tongues of the WASP God Folk than ‘pod’ is. They have been sayin’ both of the above for centuries now.
"So what got him started on this kick?" Not a hard question:
| The Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq, headed by Harith al-Dhari, the most important single spokesman for the Sunni resistance, issued a statement today that it introduced as follows: "The long-term agreement with the American occupation will have no weight with the Iraqi people, and the nationalist forces will take it upon themselves to reply to those responsible, and to hold to account those who are involved in it, and without a doubt there will be a new price to pay in the blood of pious martyrs"--but that ends with [some more twistitorializing from Cartoono]. |
But wait, that is only half of it, sir! Juan the Wicked had already put the National Populist gentlethug’s good advice into operation even before it was uttered, commenting informèdly yesterday
| So the idea of a national referendum on any Status of Forces agreement seems to be spreading. In my view, one impetus for this adoption of a California-style referendum approach is that the Iraqi parliament is not seen as strong enough to express the will of the people. |
I certainly never expected to encounter National Populism at the Ann Arbour Faculty Club, but there it is. To be sure, ’tis only second-hand or vicarious NatPop when Don Júan does it, unlike the Real Thing as vended by M. Hárith ad-Dárí. Strictly speaking, JC is on a par with Dr. Cartoonoclastes and Mr. Badger and Miss Lynx -- and with the ineffable Dr. Righteous Virtue as well. [3]
It adds notably to the fun, does it not?, that when MJ goofballs and Dr. Virtue and Prof. Cole all, mirabile dictû, agree on something, the thing agreed upon turns out to be as rare and far-fetched as engaging in National Populism on behalf of a nationalist people and populist nation that one has not the honour to belong to personally. Over on the other side of the trenches, the holy Homeland’s aggression faction has no product to match NatPop with. The closest AEI and GOP and DOD can come to vicarious National Populism is along the lines of Mr. Gladstone’s remark “There is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and the other leaders of the South have made an army. They are making, it appears, a navy. And they have made, what is more important than either; they have made a nation.” Poor M. al-Málikí's navy does not get much press, but apart from that complete lacuna, one can occasionally spot invasionites who fancy their International Zone neorégime the same way the Grand Old Man once fancied the "Confederate States of America." In neither case does the lowly populace have anything critical to do with either the (supposed) accomplishment or the evaluation of it. [4]
Anyhow, there’s the whole lot of ’em, goofballs and Righteous Virtue and Don Júan Cole all standing up for THEM THE PEOPLE of the former Iraq. This is not a show thee can see every day, Mr. Bones!
The vicarious NatPop parties are perhaps not all three standing up for exactly the same THEM, but M. ad-Dárí [5] may not mind, who said
| [A]ll of the political and social and tribal forces that stand up to the occupation and resist its presence--all are urged--today--to express their anger and their disgust in all the ways that are available to them, and to send messages of denunciation and clear statements of opposition and refusal of the taking such a step [as the proposed SOFA], because "the arrow does not return to the bow", and "oppression is the worst pasture." |
It is not probable that M. ad-Dárí was thinking of thee and me when he thus orated, Mr. Bones, but we may seize the occasion nevertheless to express our anger and our disgust. In case anybody has failed to notice from our previous scribbles, let her be advised hereby that we consider it a Very Bad Thing to go about in the world invasionizin’ other people’ provinces like witless Bushies. Furthermore, we here and now call upon our Congresscritter and upon the two Senators from Massachusetts to do whatever they can by way of refusal of the taking of such a step. If Little Brother tries to get legislative approval, let it be denied him! If Little Brother attempts to evade his obligation to get legislative approval, in the Republic of Plato let him be impeached and tried and condemned and removed! In the sewer of Romulus, though, let the next non-GOP POTUS revoke and annul any such Big Management Party yoosurpation before sundown of her first day in office -- that is all that can be reasonably expected of mere mortals. [6]
For that matter, it is also not probable that M. ad-Dárí was thinking of the Lynx-Badger-Cartoonoclastes crew, or of Dr. Righteous Virtue, or even of Prof. Cole, whom an I. Z. collaborationist pol might conceivably be aware of, when he thus orated. M. ad-Dárí orates from a rather precarious platform, figuratively speaking. The real world is not altogether without agencies that might ward off the SOFA that he very justly dreads and loathes, but these agencies are almost exclusively located in central North America rather than anywhere near M. ad-Dárí’s own neighborhood. If he were perfectly well informed and perfectly serious about wanting what he claims to want, he would first go lobby on Capitol Hill, and then perhaps try to get some holy Homeland media attention in order to convey his concerns to Televisionland and the electorate.
The plan he has actually adopted seems to be to have all those political and social and tribal forces of his -- all strictly indig -- try to make the willful coalition’s Peaceful Freedumbia look so bad on the tube that the Homeland’s couch potatos will lobby Congress for him. M. ad-Dárí may figure that the eventual comeuppance of Sec. McNamara and Dr. Kissinger as regards "South Vietnam" has established the workability of this indirect approach. He is in some danger of making a logical error at this juncture. I should not venture to deny the workability, but that is not at all the same thing as supposing that the Vietnam mode of anti-warriorism can always be relied upon. Any event that happens once shows that such an event is possible, but as to its being probable or inevitable as well, who can say?
In the case at hand, it seems to me quite likely that NatPop will simply lose. For what does such a losing entail? No more than that eventually AEI and GOP and DOD will contrive to reduce the former Iraq to the same unhappy condition that all its neighbors in the Greater Levant find themselves in, with a régime in place that is despised by most of its subjects yet remains firmly seated chiefly because it has some good hyperpowerful friends at Crawford or Washington or both. The Vietnam Paradigm is perfectly possible, but so too is this paradigm, which might be dubbed the "Macedonian Paradigm," because Cassander seems to have invented it first to keep the Greek cities in line.
As my terminology is meant to suggest, the Macedonian Paradigm has a much longer track record of success than M. ad-Dárí's preferred alternative does. No doubt an unequal condominium of internal OnePercenter clients and external OnePercenter patrons does not ALWAYS prevail over "political and social and tribal forces that stand up to the occupation and resist its presence," but on the whole the Macedonian Paradigm has done far better than "The People United can never be defeated!" M. ad-Dárí is not, of course, to confuse IS with OUGHT and ditch his National Populism merely because nobody could possibly instantiate it in the former Iraq under prevailing conditions of aggression and occupation. That way lies only moral and political cretinism.
The way to be recommended is the Path of Pascal: let M. ad-Dárí endeavor to think well about his NatPop, to make as clear and distinct as possible in his mind both what he wants The People United to grab and what TPU is likely to be able to grab, not sacrificing either concept to the other. After he has done that privately, he must decide whether he wants to share his good thinking with his troops or feed them intellectual phony baloney for morale purposes instead. That is a separate issue, it seems to me, although I am not quite sure that M. Pascal would agree that it is.
____
[0] Well, how would you punctuate two successive emm-dash interjectoids between subordinate clause and main clause?
[1] M. von Joyce could, and did, patronise his PP as well as any elitist ever, but his technique is such as to make it rather a zoölogical plainness than a geographical that the fake specimens get imbued with. ’Tis a perfectly legitimate line of commerce, that one, but it does not happen to be our own.
As to NB’O / MnagG / FO’B / %^#$!&, I am pleased to have remembered correctly that Brian used to spell ‘Brien’ with an ‘e’. That plan will have kept the PP of I in their place!
[2] "Sore State of Errin’" fits in nicely, but of course the state in question is not Irockland, but Texas. Or Greater Texas.
[3] Dr. Virtue altruistically natpops off as follows, for instance:
| Today, the latest phase in the forced ethno-federalisation of Iraq is being played out as the Kurdish–ISCI ruling minority tries to fashion a provincial elections law that can suit its strategy of minimising popular impact on the elections results. |
He differs slightly from Dr. Cartoonoclastes and from Juan the Wicked by concerning himself more with the wickedness of the wicked than with what the Children of Light are going to do about it. Yet at the end of a day, Dr. Righteous Virtue is a paleface planmonger too, even if he seems to expect his plans to be executed by swarthier types:
| Stockholm could be an opportunity for a fresh discussion of to what extent the Maliki government’s line is truly representative of Iraqi public opinion and really constitutes a sound basis for a new political system in Iraq. Arab states could try to find a constructive position between full boycott and unconditional surrender to the ISCI-Kurdish blueprint for the new Iraq. |
Dr. Virtue jumps in at the deep end of the Pol. Sci. tank, it seems to me, when he proposes that committees of foreigners are now to make sure that Ruritania and Paflagonia (and presumably every other statelet that cannot defend itself adequately) equip themselves with government lines truly representative of public opinion. This is not strictly contradictio in adjecto, Mr. Bones, although it looks like it at a casual glance. Exactly what the native Virtutite sophistry in defence of this detestable spinach may be, I cannot tell you, but an already familiar sophistry can do the trick required: simply suppose that R.V. has invented or discovered himself an external public whose opinion must ever be deferred to -- not to say ‘enforced’. That entity will be ontologically comparable to Dr. Toynbee’s "external proletariat," don’t thee know?
As often, Pol. Sci. may be lagging behind political practice, inasmuch as Cartoono the Magnificent and the rest of the Mu’ámara Junction gentry pretty plainly conceive of the Sunnintern, which they firmly support contra mundum with that rigorous nondenominational unsectarianism that makes them so charming, as a Toynbeeo-Virtutian external internality. Don Júan does nothing the least bit like that, which must have a good deal to do with why the goofballs hate him. He may well be confused on more or less the same subject, but there have been no traces in the Colean chaos of anything ideological that is more recent than St. Woodrow Wilson.
Righteous Virtue himself speaks of "Arab states," which could be identical with the goofballs’ Sunní International, but probably means something more in the vein of Colonel Nasser. And God knows best what all these guys are up to, exactly.
[4] Mr. Gladstone became something like a populist at a latter point in his career, but naturally the recollection of ‘President’ Davis was merely an embarrasment to him by then. At all times he was far loftier-minded than the dupes and dupers of AEI and GOP and DOD are at present. Even when he misguidedly praised the CSA, he praised it as a thing in itself, disinterestedly, whereas of course the glorious Coalition of the Willful care nothin’ for poor M. al-Málikí except insofar as he serves their convenience and flatters their fatuous self-esteemin’. The 1863 Gladstone was a sort of "force nationalist," as it were, more interested in armies and navies than in elections and constitutions and "faith and family, blood and belief." But he was at his worst a vicarious force nationalist, not a grubby self-seeker.
[5] Cartoono calls M. ad-Dárí "the most important single spokesman for the Sunni resistance," which is mostly a question of goofball taste or ideology, but at least there is nothing the least bit disinterested or vicarious or altruistic about him.
[6] Notice that even at the Romulus level, constitutionalism matters to Wunnerful US in a way that must be blankly unintelligible to AEI-GOP-DOD subjects in the former Iraq.
M. ad-Dárí may or may not intend to inspire his theocommunity’s shootists to more and better effusions of physical force when he talks that way. Here in the holy Homeland, though, to recommend armed muqáwama against militant GOP extremism is simply off the scope. Steps far short of that, steps like impeachment of Little Brother or summoning the Big Party perps to account for themselves before an international war crimes tribunal, have only to be mentioned to make the mentioner of them seem a dotty crank. To talk in a Dárí-like way inside the frmework of a civilised State is counterproductive, so let’s not do it, Mr. Bones! We can be under no obligation to demonstrate our anti-Bushevik zeal by shooting ourselves in the foot.
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