That gleesome threesome of Miss Lynx and Mr. Badger and Dr. Cartoonoclastes have no fresher hobgoblin to threaten us with. howebver, than poor old Joe Biden, the schizomaniacal enemy of all rigidly nonsectarian pro-Sunnianity:
| Possibly the US finally gave up on the idea of "leveraging" Maliki to make concessions to the Sunni parties, and the US decided to help the Sunni parties on its own. Possibly this accounts for scuttlebut along these lines has surfaced in a couple of instances, both of them having a common feature: the spectre of US security support for Sunni groups in the western part of Iraq. Possibly. Because this is what Biden had been saying: Central-government accomodations are not in the cards; there have to be separate regions by ethnicity and sect. Certainly if the US is setting itself up to supervise such a process over the coming three-year period of time (or longer), that is certainly something that would account for the silence we are hearing from the Democratic Party policy-groupies. Brian, Colin, Sam, Marc and all of you: Would it hurt you to say it isn't so[? |
(Personal appeals produced only unpleasant blowback last time around, but evidently hope springs eternal at Mu’ámara Junction.)
Cartoono is about the only guru in sight who supposes poor old plebeian Joe will be able to dictate foreign and aggression policy to Grand Duchess Rodham-Clinton. This may, of course, be due to the fact that he has no more idea than I do exactly where her ladyship stands on the issue of applying fiendish schizomania to the provinces of the former al-‘Iráq. HRC may not know herself, though doubtless she and Viscount Holbrooke and Countess Albright and Mr. Peretz of Harvard (&c. &c.) can make up something presentable rapidly enough. I'd guess myself that the crew of the USS Hillarious will prefer to have as little to do with post-‘Iráq as possible, mainly on "not invented here" grounds, although there must be limits to how far and how quickly they can disassociate themselves from Wolfie's Waterloo and set up a quagmire almost all their own over in darkest Khorasán. We shall see.
The LBC, Lynx-Badger-Cartoonoclastes, hobgoblin du jour is outlined in a bit more detail as follows:
| The Obama policy-groupies had in recent months been outspoken in their criticism of the Bush administration for not exerting "strategic" leverage on Maliki to make political concessions to the Sunni parties. Suddenly the bloggish Obama people (Katulis, Kahl, Sam Parker, Marc Lynch and that whole group, not to mention the whole of Brookings, CAP, etcetera) have fallen completely silent on Iraq policy. What happened to their "leverage" argument? Putting the questions together: what did the Maliki administration come to understand about the coming Democratic Party policy that made him grab for the best deal available under Bush, even though key "concessions on sovereignty" such as supervision of US military activities, and criminal jurisdiction, were clearly exposed as a sham in the McClatchy story on the eve of the vote (points on which even Sistani is now showing signs of buyer’s remorse)[?] |
Cartoono does not do question marks, it looks like -- that's the second one the present keyboard had to [insist] on. If thee will reflect a little, Mr. Bones, I believe thee will agree that this is a becoming and aimiable trait for conspiracy-crazies to evince, a subtle transitional insinuation that what they concoct to worry themselves about may actually be real. BGKB.
There is a bit of a puzzle, though, why Cartoono should suddenly take poor M. al-Málikí's point of view. Has the Prime Quasiminister switched teams, then, and started playing for the good guys? It seems a bit improbable, considering that His Excellency's credentials as a rigidly nonsectarian pro-Sunni remain as questionable as ever. Dr. Cartoonoclastes may have lost sight of his own ball, so to speak, or fallen for his own agitprop. A post-‘Iráq with a strong central International Zone neorégime that amounts to Núrí Kamál writ large would qualify as watan-nationalistical in the technical sense, but if Cartoono will settle for no more than that, he is not the factionist I took him for, the bitter-end factionist who sternly resolved that ex-‘Iráq must be handed back to its Natural Masters, a race to which no heretic or hillbilly can ever truly belong. Formerly the only heretics who could get the time of day from the Mu’ámara Junction gentry were the Sadr Tendency, whom they will have supposed a hopeless bunch of political sadsacks and juvenile delinquents that it would be easy for Natural Masters to think their way around. The Hannibal of Da‘wa is obviously not quite like that, not any more!
Regardless of whether thee roots for or against poor M. al-Málikí, Mr. Bones, it does rather look, does it not?, as if he sees his SOFA and his security agreement with Rancho Crawford as tending to reinforce the position of himself personally. The cartoonoclastic hobgoblin comes to the fiend Biden setting up the Natural Masters in control of the wild and oil-dry northwest provinces only, and not the whole Ba‘thí shebang. Naturally poor M. al-Málikí would rather grab the whole loaf, and so too would Lynx Badger Cartoonoclastes & Co. prefer to grab the whole loaf. Under the circumstances to say "They both want the same thing" is absurd, unless one -- also absurdly -- assumes that the thing itself is "the territorial integrity of the former al-‘Iráq" as opposed to "the whole loaf grabbed by US." The applicable proverb is either "Two of a trade can never agree" or "An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind."
Conspiracy-crazies like Cartoono are perfectly capable of announcing absurd things, there is no surprise in that. Unfortunately it is not easy in the present case to decide whether the absurdity is believed in with subjective sincerity or merely put forwards in the hope that others will swallow it. The hope, as opposed to the conspiratorializing, may or may not be absurd. Thee must ever bear in mind, O Bones, that Dr. Cartoonoclastes sets up as an expert on Greater Levantine affairs and may therefore not reasonably hope to sell his dupes and marks various products that they would never dream of buying in markets that they know more about. The former al-‘Iráq falling prey to the knavish tricks of Gelb and Biden and Galbraith at this point in the course of the aggression must look very fishy to anybody capable of independent judgment. Yet how many of them are there?
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