"complete alienation of the Iraqi street"

This just in from from the Goofville Pretzel Corporation:

Ultra-low voter-registration, with a particular drop in support for the Islamic parties, seems to be consistent with the overall point of view expressed by the Al-Qabas op-ed writer (see prior post) [*] namely that the government (supported by the Islamic parties Dawa and the Supreme Council) feels obliged to keep on putting out these recent tough-sounding statements on the bilateral negotiations, because it is "going through a difficult situation in which it is threatened with the complete alienation of the Iraqi street..." [*] [Cartoono detects a] "confusing yes/no pattern of Iraqi assertions of a withdrawal-schedule followed inevitably by the US denial .... [Snip summatorial from al-Qabas] It is in response to this intense pressure [from watan-nationalists] that the Maliki administration continues to make these would-be reassuring statements about agreement with the occupier ...."

COMPLETE ALIENATION OF THE IRAQI STREET must sound like a really splendid idea to Miss Lynx and Mister Badger and Doctor Cartoonoclastes. The student will note, however, that it makes a good deal of difference exactly what the noble and heroic Street Arabs are alienated from. And it makes at least some difference, though perhaps not quite as much, which way the heroes and nobles jump towards when they jump away from X. There can be no question of Goofville approving of itineral alienation simpliciter, as can be established by a thought experiment that is not difficult. Imagine the attitude of the Mu’ámara Junction gentry to an IQ Street that should have the impertinence to be alienated from themselves after they finally gain control of the former Iraq. Or rather, when their native and local ideobuddies are restored to that natural mastery of Mesopotamia that they have unaccountably been deprived of for over half a decade.

Now the student will have observed for herself a major point that Lynx, Badger, Cartoonoclastes LLC probably will never be caught drawing her attention to: COMPLETE ALIENATION OF THE STREET is the accepted everyday condition of all the other political rackets in the Greater Levant. Life in the former Iraq is rapidly becoming ... -- well, perhaps not exactly "better, comrades, ... more cheerful" but at any rate, more normal. [1] What hath Petraeus wrought? [2]

That is only a major point about ex-Iraq, however. More important is today’s quite different major point about Miss Lynx and Mister Badger and Doctor Cartoonoclastes, namely that COMPLETE ALIENATION OF THE IRAQI STREET is the very first time that they have condescended to mention the existence of an "Iraqi street." (Unless I missed something, naturally.) I had thought they considered it somehow demeaning to their belovèd TwentyPercenter clients and their ideobuddies of the Sunnintern when invasion-language journalism talked that way. Apparently I was mistaken.

One can never be entirely sure with pretzelmongers, I daresay, yet it LOOKS as if for once the LBC crew take a view of the present correlation of farces not altogether different from my own. That is, as if "the Iraqi street" is an entity that has just recently congealed or clotted or otherwise come into being. An expression that was quite unsuitable six months ago has now become useful and convenient and not too misleading. Perhaps these Parmenidean personages do not really believe anything so crude as that. As a mere grovelling Aristotelian, however, I shall take a low WYSIWYG view as usual and assume that even appearance-despising pretzelmongers are really up to what it looks like they are up to primâ facie until that hypothesis proves completely unviable. Dr. Cartoonoclastes used the words "seems to be consistent with" in the declamation quoted, so let us hypothesize that the recent emergence of a ‘street’ in the former Iraq seems to be consistent with the way Cartoono has modulated his own verbiage.

To be sure, what has most strikingly emerged in the former Iraq of late is the Hannibal of Da‘wa. Cartoono’s "consistency with" is consistent with the Metamorphosis of Málikí™ being the stimulus that has caused a Post-Iraqi Street to congeal at last. Applied to the actual matter of his sentence, though, there may be slight difficulties of the lucus a non lucendo sort: are we to say that "ultra-low voter-registration, with a particular drop in support for the Islamic parties" is evidence for the existence of a Post-Iraqi Street? "I am, therefore I decline to register to vote"? Easy to see why a Parmenidean pretzelmonger might think so, but can decent political grown-ups go along for that ride?

Well, perhaps. Our own underlying guess is that ex-Iraq has been reverting rapidly towards Greater Levantine normalcy of late, and it is quite possible to view the Street Arabs in general as a negativity, as the ragamuffin ninety-nine percent who JUST SAY NO to the Palace Arabs, to the empowered and emboldened OnePercenters. Just saying NO does not have any detectable effect on Arab Palace policy and governance, most of the time, but it could nevertheless be the key to all Arab Street mythologies. We are not in Kansas any more, after all. Unfortunately.

As soon as I assemble my own sketchy notions into something like coherence, I discover, not very surprisingly, that Miss Lynx and Mister Badger and Doctor Cartoonoclastes, along with their faithful clients and zealot ideobuddies, cannot possibly agree very extensively. Being naturally low-minded and Aristotelian and WYSIWYG, I make a verbal cartoon of it: now that Hannibal Redux has erected some preliminary facsimile of a Post-Iraqi Palace, 99% of his (nominal) subjects respond by paving a Post-Iraqi Street around it. Quite apart from the vulgar idolatry of it, the pseudocartoon must displease at Goofville because the gentry are not open to the idea that poor M. al-Málikí has actually accomplished anything the least bit palatial. [3]



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[1] Good cheer bordering on a flat-out goofiness almost worthy of Cartoono the Magnificent himself is not absent from the former Iraq, if the Associated Press knows what it speaks of:

Iraq is calling on companies to submit designs to build a giant Ferris wheel in Baghdad — the latest in a string of lavish proposals painting the capital as a leisure friendly city. The Ferris wheel ... will soar more than 650 feet over the city and feature air-conditioned compartments that would each carry up to 30 passengers, Baghdad municipal spokesman Adel al-Ardawi said Wednesday.

This development deserves separate treatment, however. Its implications are fathomless and extend below and above and generally far beyond the parochial frontiers of ex-Iraq in every geographical direction and conceptual dimension. Meanwhile, a second AP story from 27 August 2008

NAJAF, Iraq (AP) — The city's first airport is weeks away from opening, but already a bigger one is talked about. Land prices are soaring. Merchants say they don't remember business ever being so good. Four years ago, Najaf was an urban battlefield with American troops fighting Shiite militiamen loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Today, the Shiite holy city is a hot spot of a different kind thanks to improved security, a free-for-all market economy — and a direct pipeline to the Shiite-led government. The boomtown buzz in Najaf is more remarkable for .... [1]

indicates that the capillaries are co-prospering with their jugular. At least, some of the capillaries do.

The student had better read that gem through as well, though ever mindful that the cheer of Most Noble Najaf must necessarily be merely sectorian in nature as compared to the cheer of Brave New Baghdád.


[2] Not a rhetorical question. Although we have already supplied the answer several times, here it is again: Petraeo-McNamaran counterinsurgency hath wrought (1) that the big battalions once again look likely to win, and (2) martial law is shown to remain a perfectly workable scheme in Century XIV/XXI. (This is not as big a deal as AEI-GOP-DoD-USIP-EIB groupies like to make it out, but it is a long way from contemptible all the same.)


[3] They still think their team is winning, even. (Golly, let the student think of THAT!)

In nineteenth-century England , a fierce quarrel once broke out between two women shouting at one another from second storey windows on opposite sides of the street. An Anglican bishop, passing by with friends, predicted, ‘These women can’t possibly agree; they are arguing from opposite premises.' In [discussion of the former Iraq], for similar reasons, the debates rage on.