| Iraqi politics is developing in a healthy way. There was considerable anxiety that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as the leader of the Shiite-dominated Islamic Dawa Party has also proven to be more than a sectarian politician and no Iranian pawn. Instead, he has turned out to be a muscular Iraqi nationalist, a stance that enjoys far greater popular support than many Western "experts" on Iraq believed possible. (Remember Senator Joe Biden and others who advised only last year that Iraq had to be divided into three parts?) It's thus no surprise that the more Mr. Sadr aligned himself with Tehran, the faster his popularity declined, which is all the more reason to see our involvement in Iraq through to an irreversible victory. |
I quote from the editorial board of the Wall Street Jingo, so there can be no questioning the accuracy of the assessment. Mammon and Murdoch forbid that anybody should question!
The corporate choice of items to assess is perhaps discussable without actual blasphemy. Mention of the Rev. Señorito al-Sadr is no surprise, but were you aware that the RFC, "renegade firebrand cleric," is, or used to be, in league with Senator Biden of Delaware to create the unhappiness of the Mesopotamian provinces? The odd coupling of Joe and Mookie seems a bit provincial and parochial to me. As far as I know, poor Mr. Biden has been unable to DO anything about the way that Boy and Party and Ideology have seen fit to govern or misgovern their spear-won neosubjects.
Biden has, though, been strikingly passive and fatalistic about the Hyperpowerful Executive, presumably on constitutional grounds. Either we hit the greedy pigs over the snout by cutting off their Congressional funding, or we let them invasionize and guantánamicate and waterboard pretty much as they please. No intermediate position seems tenable to the Senator.
There is much more to be said for his position than your average Obamaninny will care to listen to. Should the Senatorino from Cook County actually make it to the White House, Joseph Biden will still be a pest, I anticipate, because the Fedguv constitution will not have changed one iota, technically speaking, merely because of a Second Coming. Every time Barák XLIV itches to do some fun thing abroad that Mr. Madison and the Gang of ’87 might not have approved of altogether, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will attempt to bore his Commander-in-Chief to death by explaining this or that obsolete rigmarole that POTUS ought voluntarily to permit to tie his hands -- scads and scads of tedium to endure from a guy who admits in advance that he cannot make any of it stick!
It is impossible for a serious moraliser not to approve of Senator Joseph Biden. That constitutional Kismet of his means that the distinction of Macht and Recht can never be lost sight of: "It is the right thing to do, Mr. President, even if nobody can MAKE us do it." George XLIII does not understand such a distinction at all, and Sidney LXLIV, the dumb Mugwump, cannot tell the difference between righteousness and JohnMcCainishness with any reliability. B. Hussein Obáma understands it thoroughly, but BHO is a spiritual Harvard: Joe will always be able to tell him, but . . . .
It is a pleasure to speak well of Sen. Biden, but you may have noticed that I do not speak of the former Iraq at the same time. What is there to say of both together? A tiny and dotty school of amateur analysis has attempted to make him out a monster bent on ripping the former Iraq to shreds that shall never be patched together, but that is merely silly: he has had scarcely more influence on the colonial and imperial policies of AEI-GOP-DOD-USIP than the anti-Bidenite crew have had themselves.
It is also a pleasure to hear the Wall Street jingos badmouthin’ the man, although the conjunction with Sadr Tertius is so unexpected that one naturally wants to look into it a little. Up to what are Murdoch and Mammon? There are lots of other doves and donkeys to pick from, why do they single out Joe? Because he "advised only last year that Iraq had to be divided into three parts"?
I suppose that must be it, but if so, the Murdochites and Mammonolaters cannot be seriously interested in Senator Biden, he is just a sort of convenient pillar to lean on while they pat themselves on the back. Have they at last discovered why they aggressed their way into the former Iraq in March 2003, that they have been aimin’ to preserve the territorial integrity thereof all along? It looks as if.
There are a couple of large -- elephant-sized -- and extremely well-kept secrets here: (1) Who but the Jingos perceived five years ago that Ba‘thí Iraq was on the point of dissolution? (2) Who has detected any particular effort by the Jingos and their Boy and their Party to keep the former Iraq in one piece since?
One is not to fall off one’s horse into schizophobic dottiness on the other side, though, and accuse AEI-GOP-DOD-USIP of wicked "divide and conquer" schemes every time one discusses their occupational therapy program. In fact, the good folks of Team Aggression were, and are, not much interested in colonial theology; whether they imperialise over a Three or over a One matters very little to them. A Forty-Six would be fine with them, as long as it makes ’em look good.
At the moment what makes the Jingos look good, at least to themselves, is the way poor M. al-Málikí has set himself up as the Hannibal of Da‘wa, "turned out to be a muscular Iraqi nationalist." Any student of Mammonism and Murdochery in general will suspect at once that muscularity makes a far greater appeal to that weird mindset than nationalism does. One common nonjocular name for the Jingos’ demoplutocratic ideology is "globalism," which on its face means that nationalism can go fly a kite for all they care.
Our GOP geniuses are not the brightest bulbs that ever burned. Very likely they misunderstand the messages that their own hormones are sendin’ ’em. It would be odd if they did not enthuse about the Brave New Núrí, but not at all surprising if they sincerely think they admire their great right hope for his ‘nationalism’ rather than for his Hannibal imitation. They may be sincerely and semiconsciously confused about it at the doctrinal level. Take a typical Harvard Victory School MBA, a credentialled practitioner of Big Management: is her primary loyalty to Big Management as such, or to whatever particular business corporation she is permitted to play with the assets of at the moment?
If the latter, she would be the private-sectarian equivalent of a political nationalist. But is she at all likely to be such a creature? She must, of course, be able to say with a perfectly straight face that Coca-Cola is almost infinitely superior to Pepsi-Cola, but does she really believe it? If Pepsi-Cola offered to make her Vice President for High Fructose Corn Syrup at three times her present remuneration and with five times as large a bigmanagerial sphere, would she spurn the vile temptation with language worthy of Nathan Hale? Might not "an irreversible victory" for Pepsi do the trick as well?
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Exactly which paleface planmongers are supposed to be mortified when the triumphalist Jingos sneer at "experts" is unclear. Senator Biden is not to be classified that way, is he?
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As has happened at earlier points in the course of the aggression, pretty well everybody and his sister-in-law thinks his own team is winning in the former Iraq at the moment. Now appears to be the first moment, however, when all the self-announced winners are bound and determined to wrap themselves vicariously in the flag of "Iraqi" "nationalism." Those who took to that particular shtik long ago will probably take a dim view of the Johnnies-come-lately.
Meanwhile, there must be at least a couple of surly critters who decided to sit out this Caucus Race altogether. Where are you now, Peter Galbraith?
But God knows best. Happy days.
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