Iraqiness Go Bragh!

Rear-Colonel Nirish: "I do not agree that Kirkuk is an 'Arab' city, but I agree whole heartedly that its 'Iraqiness' must be preserved." Field Marshal Rejab: "A distinction that once again, for various reasons, will be lost on a lot of people. Already this morning we have Juan proclaiming: "Arab tribes threaten violence!" -- conveniently leaving out the part about not wanting violence and preserving its Iraqi character....

Not much point in erewhonating Juan the Wicked into "Don Naúch" or the like, is there, Mr. Bones? But let's see, what the usual suspect actually scribbled was

Parliament Adjourns with No Provincial Election Law; Arab Tribes Threaten Violence The Iraqi parliament proved unable to pass a provincial elections law on Wednesday despite a marathon 4-hour extraordinary session. They adjourned for the rest of the month. The sticking point was finding an acceptable formula for holding the elections in the mixed province of Kirkuk, which is being fought over by Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs. The failure to pass the law makes it virtually impossible to hold provincial elections in 2008. (...) Al-Hayat says that the Arab tribal leaders of Kirkuk Province have threatened violence to "defend the Arab character of the city," [*] which the Kurdistan Regional Government wants to annex. Shaykh Husayn Ali al-Juburi, the head of the governing council in Hawija District and leader of the United Arab Bloc, told the paper, "Arabs have limited patience," adding, "the Arab tribes in Kirkuk are prepared, and have the ability, and the reach, in all Iraqi cities." (He means "to commit violence.")

[*] That is an odd way to leave something out, and not a notably convenient one.

Well, we only reports, ’tis thee what decides, O Bones! Cartoono’s own summatorial admittedly does not have his infinitely noble and oppressed TwentyPercenters announcing "We hereby threaten you that . . . ." But it might as well have, me judice.

The goofball contingent are not at their most formidable intellectually in this particular fuss, it seems to me, although they do have the significant advantage of having picked which team to yell for long since. At Ann Arbour, Juan the Wicked can still enjoy the luxury of pretending that he will condemn whoever throws the first stone. The rigorously antisectarian pro-Sunnis at Mu’ámara Junction are going to have to defend their own pets even if the latter do look a bit like vigilantes or Busheviki. To watch Miss Lynx and Mr. Badger and Dr. Cartoonoclastes kid themselves that their alone cause at Kirkúk -- as ubique et semper -- will be a defense of the iraquitas of the former Iraq ought to be a fun show.

Mlle. Shirin up in the MJ peanut gallery needs some mild counseling from the Thought Police, though. Let us have her symptoms again please, Sam! And in full:

I have felt from the beginning that the most dangerous and difficult-to-resolve conflict for Iraq would be around Kirkuk. One of the ironies is that whereas it seems the battle is over the "Arabness" versus the "Kurdness" of Kirkuk, it was, before it was "Kurdish" or "Arab", more a Turkmen city, and yet the Turkmens seem to be left out of this altogether now. I do not agree that Kirkuk is an "Arab" city, but I agree whole heartedly that its "Iraqiness" must be preserved.

That is worthy of the Wolkenkuckuckheim Beobachter, is it not, Mr. Bones? To prevent either saintly Saracens or Free Kurds from monopolising iraquitas, let everybody simply pretend that the whole joint is basically Túránian in character, and has been ever since the wandering Sumerians first wandered in. That’s far niftier than anything the learnèd Cartoonoclastes has ever come up with, nicht wahr? Notice especially how well it accomodates itself to an Anti-Safavid Pact of Steel. Írán and Túrán are still going at one another hammer and tongs, just like chez Ferdowsí. Golly! Don’t thee wish thee had thought of that, Mr. Bones? Not as a thing to believe, of course, but simply as a conceptual object of wonder and delight.

Unfortunately Mlle. Shirin is not broadcasting quite on the Lynx-Badger-Cartoonoclastes wavelength. The inner circle of goofballs are sworn never to admit what they are really up to, but naturally they are not supposed to succumb to their own agitprop and forget what they are really up to either. If the TwentyPercenters could somehow be made out significantly less non-Ural-Altaic than the Free Kurds are, perhaps it would be useful as well as nifty, but alas! For real world purposes, the lady might as well propose that everybody at Kirkúk convert to United-Church-of-Christism before the end of next month. That plan, too, could produce an iraquitas undefiled by "Arabness" or "Kurdness" or the last thousand years of human events. That plan, too, would be quite absurd.

Cartoono the Magnificent at least aims at a possible outcome, though perhaps not a very probable one. Kirkúk must, obviously, appertain to the TwentyPercenters. That is axiomatic. But who is to guarantee that they get it and keep it? Ideally the answer would be Themselves Alone, but the present state of the former Iraq is far from ideal. The sectarian scumbags down at New Baghdád may not want Kirkúk for themselves, but most of them seem willing enough to abandon it to Free Kurd carpetbaggers and scalawags. The greater powers of the Sunni International are located in the wrong places, geographically. Turkey looks good on the map -- and is even impeccably Túránian! -- but she is also an ally of AEI-GOP-DOD-USIP-NATO, which makes the situation not so promising. Doubtless the Turks would much rather that the Free Kurds do not get their hillbilly paws on Kirkúk, but how are they to invasionize to prevent that disaster before the last wave of alien invasionites go away?

Which brings us to Little Brother and the Big Management Party, the same old gutter that we usually wind up in. Who do the cowpoker vigilantes think ought to get this prize?

I cannot imagine that they much care who gets the town, Mr. Bones, so long as Exxon-Mobil et hoc genus eventually get the black gunk and AEI-GOP-DOD immediately get whatever credit may be goin’. Should Mlle. Shirin's "most dangerous and difficult-to-resolve conflict" actually break out, the cause of invasionism, and presumably the Party of Grant, will have suffered a serious reverse. So, to the extent that the stuff between their ears is not sawdust, the Big Management bozos should be tryin’ to make sure that nothin’ of significance does break out. If they are reduced to pickin’ sides after the troubles get started, they will be in deep doo-doo: no choice would be satisfactory, neither in the sense of leadin’ to a quick restoration of Greater Levantine normalcy, nor of sheddin’ additional colonial lustre upon the heirs of Th. Roosevelt and L. Atwater.

Cartoono and the MJ goofballs would also be in grave straits, it seems to me, unless their clients come equipped with a good deal more Naturherrschaft than I have yet managed to detect in them. On the other hand, their TwentyPercenter pets would presumably be enduring the siege of Kirkúk rather than laying it, and nowadays any team that is really and truly and strictly on the defensive has a great deal going for it. Think of the Lebanese God Party resisting the armed might of Telavivistán, for instance, sir.

Nous verrons. God knows best.


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[1] Team Aggression would be extremely displeased if Kirkúk were somehow to accrue to the evil Qommies, but it is so difficult to make up a half-plausible scenario to that tune that one can probably forget about it altogether. Dr. Cartoonoclastes is far better than thee and me at conspiratorialising, Mr. Bones, and he has much stronger motives than we are to concoct such a fantasy scenario. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, he manages to fadge up.

Unless some very big link has gone missin’, though, Cartoono possesses no means to communicate his brainstorms to Rancho Crawford apart from his usual blogghiatura performances, which one cannot imagine the cowpokers payin’ any attention to, not even as a source of innocent merriment.