It's A Jugular Out There

In response, during the hearings, Petraeus told Lugar, "We've got to continue. We have our teeth into the jugular, and we need to keep it there." The general clearly likes that phrase, because he used it twice more [at a private séance with Mr. Broder and the Washington Post]. I can see why Bush admires his aggressive tone. And I can understand why his troops revere their commander. But when I asked him if there was a better answer to the question Lugar raised -- is there such a strategy [one that "that recognizes the time limitations that we face and seeks a realistic outcome designed to protect American vital interests"], -- his answer was murky. He began with the comment that "there has to be a regional approach," and he went off the record for a time, then came back with many references to Iran. When a colleague asked if we had a plausible strategy for engaging or persuading or coercing Iran to cooperate in that elusive regional solution, the answer was: We're working on it at many levels. Meantime, Petraeus' suggestion is that we focus "less on an exit strategy from Iraq and more on an engagement strategy." I think the answer to the challenge Lugar raises will have to come from the presidential candidates, not the general. It certainly won't come from this president.

The Washington Post Company having re-reconsidered, they and their organ of journalism must for the moment be counted as generally in support of the 2003-2??? aggression. Mr. Broder himself perhaps knows better, but then again, maybe not. You can tell from the concluding microparagraph, Mr. Bones, that he will not be voting for J. Sidney McCain, but that is quite consistent with an underlying quest for more efficient and profitable invasionism down the road, the M. Albright aggression product rather than that of P. Wolfowitz, so to say.

Dr. Gen. David H. Petrolaeus of Princeton and GOP and DOD was not addressin’ a hostile audience, then, when he lunched with some of the hired-hand WaPos. It fits in nicely that Mr. Broder should burn a little incense to Big Party neocomrade R. Lugar -- "The Indiana Republican, one of the real wise men of foreign policy and an ally of the Bush administration." For lo! St. Dick gets the whole first half of Mr. Broder's column, in the form of "five ‘premises’ that he said should guide discussions on future U.S. policy." D. Hannibal only shows up afterwards to be judged by the Lugar Criteria and found at least slightly wantin’, as shown in Exhibit A above.

Why does Mr. Broder place inverted commas around the ‘premises’ of R. Lugar? Probably merely because the neocomrade used that very word. Hope is faint that Mr. Broder noticed, and tried to object to or subvert, the "Kindly let me know best!" aspect of St. Dick's premises. There's really no evidence, however, that Mr. Broder, and the Washington Post Company, and quite a number of other non-Party invasionites are not entirely content to have their discussions of Uncle Sams future invasions and occupations so guided. Viewed from that angle, perhaps D. Hannibal deserves some mild commendation for refusin’ to go along quiet: Let us "focus," said he, "less on an exit strategy from Iraq and more on an engagement strategy." [1]

What was it that turned mild-manered Dr. Gen. D. Hannibal Petrolaeus of Princeton (and elsewhere) into Jugular Joe? Well, according to Broder of the Baní WaPo, the immediate stimulus was this:

According to those premises, Lugar said, the questions before Congress and the country are much different now from those being asked when the surge strategy was launched. "Today," he said, "the questions are whether and how improvements in security can be converted into political gains that can stabilize Iraq, despite the impending drawdown of United States troops. Simply appealing for more time to make progress is insufficient. Debate over how much progress we have made and whether we can make more is less illuminating than determining whether the administration has a definable political strategy that recognizes the time limitations that we face and seeks a realistic outcome designed to protect American vital interests."

St. Dick can be rather a jerk, it looks like, Mr. Bones. What does that tripe amount to if not a touchin’ly poignant lament that R. Lugar cannot figure out what the [exp. del.] his Little Brother is up to in Peaceful Freedumbia, so perhaps D. Hannibal would like to take a shot at helpin’ him guess what it might be? (Yuck. Who elected these people?)

Trottin’ out anythin’ at all, even a jugular, would be better for D. Hannibal than to respond to that foolishness in its own terms. It is not for the ’umble likes of him to "determine whether the administration has a definable political strategy." As a matter of fact, D. Hannibal probably makes the AEI-GOP-DOD semiconquest and occupation policies more than anybody else does in this phase of the Mesopotamia caper, but technically he is not even a member of the Brat Administration, let alone a responsible spokesman. The Dr. Gen. can go do what he is told without worryin’ about whether his chickenhawk betters have a clue what they are doin’. R. Lugar does not seem to, that’s for sure.

On the other hand, Responde stulto iuxta stultitiam suam does apply here after a fashion. R. Lugar blathers as if he was runnin’ against his own Little Brother for the top job, so D. Hannibal blathers as if he was runnin’ himself. [3] Fair enough, although D. Hannibal comes off lookin’ a little better if one belives in "Boost, don’t knock!"

And again I say, "Yuck."

____
[1] DHP, who thinks with steel-claptrap mind in PowerPoint® instead of Greater Texan, may have seemed somwhat more ‘murky’ to WaPo prosemongers than he really is. For him, Policy and Strategy and Operations and Tactics are four clean different things that ignorant chickenhawks tend to muddle up even when they ask him to lunch or to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. An "exit strategy" from Peaceful Freedumbia, then, or alternatively an "engagement strategy" inside the bushogenic quagmire, exists at a different level of the chart than "the challenge Lugar raises."

Plainly Mr. Broder takes his Level Two remark as an answer to St. Dick’s Level One ‘premisses’. And plainly that is a boo-boo, even if D. Hannibal in fact wants to go for the Policy jugular as well as the Strategy jugular. Until the Ivy League’s Jugular Joe actually starts campaignin’ to put himself rather than J. Sidney in the White House, his fellow Americans probably will not know for sure where he stands on Kiddie Krusadin’ as a general ("Level One: Policy", cell A69) proposition.

Strictly or Princetonianly speaking, then, all D. Hannibal does in Exhibit A is decline to be evaluated by the Premises of Lugar. Whether he agrees or disagrees with them or just covers his best-belovèd ass by dodgin’ ’em right or wrong cannot be ascertained from Mr. Broder's account. It may tentatively be inferred, however, that D. Hannibal considers "exit strategy" rather than "engagement strategy" on Level Two to follow from the Premises of Lugar up on Level One. Even we lay sheep can make out why a braniac violence pro might think that, Mr. Bones: St. Dick’s oracles II through V all suggest that the way of the aggressor in the former Iraq is not expected to get easier any time soon.

Neocomrades more heartily loyal to Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology than the Indiana Solon might well find the Premises of Lugar decidedly unsatisfactory as a guide for discussions on future U.S. policy, were they clever and diligent enough to notice. (They are not.) Mr. Broder treats the Premises of Lugar as if every slave of Ms. Sapientia Conventionalis must agree with them. That may be a slight misunderstaning of the actual situation, as I'd conjecture. The truth may be that all of Miss Sappy's devotees will be about equally displeased by the Premises of Lugar, a distinctly different proposition.


[2] Mr. Broder's fancy is antecedently disposed to the running-for-President shtik, which may be why this scribble exists at all.

The Big Party Proconsul Speaks

Crocker met with a small group of reporters and columnists Friday afternoon in a windowless conference room at the State Department. He ... downplayed the conflict with Congress over the Status of Forces Agreement. Democrats fear that the Bush administration will bind future administrations to long-term military obligations in Iraq without consulting Congress. "There is not going to be a valid objection," from Congress, he predicted. Democrats are not likely to agree. Strenuously. Crocker said he was struck, but not surprised, by the extent to which the Congressional hearings focused on the cost of the Iraq operation and how upset lawmakers were that the U.S. is still footing so much of the bill when the Iraqi government has cash to chip in. He said he got the message loud and clear but argued, as he did in the hearings, that the problem with progress in Iraq is not money, but the lack of infrastructure to improve quality of life at a rapid rate.

That's enough to be getting on with, Mr. Bones. A little bit of discomfort for everybody: R. Crocker is rather a dubious ornament to militant Republicanianty, but the Dove-Donkey Joint High Command is not covering itself with glory either by fixating on what aggressions and invasions and semiconquests cost nowadays. It does not occur to anybody at the DDJHC that making the victim pay the victimizers’ expenses turns "mere" assault and battery into robbery. Will Crocker Effendi actually make crude financial representations to poor M. al-Málikí when gets back to New Baghdád? Not probable. The Demoncrats can’t actually get at invasionites and their little foreign friends yet, not as long as Grant's Old Party can sustain a presidential veto, so most likely R. Crocker and N. K. (J.) al-Málikí will only share a laugh at the ineffectuality of their antagonists. Also their petty-mindedness -- for what is a mere thirty billion dollars annually between such good friends as Rancho Crawford and the International Zone neorégime have become?

But let us face facts, Mr. Bones: the pseudodiplomatic neocomrade wins that round if we score on the basis of IQ points. R. Crocker can loan that clever new infrastructure song-and-dance of his to the handlers of J. Sidney McCain as yet another excellent reason to hang around in the former Iraq through decades and generations to come, during which period Halliburton and Bechtel can either rebuild the whole joint from the subsoil up or, more likely, fiddle around aimlessly and bill outrageously. Ah, them pricey trainin’ wheels! (Poor M. al-Málikí will not be made privy to that Big Managerial joke, I suspect. In this case they are talkin’ about real money instead of chickenfeed.) R. Crocker may be cynical, but at least he is not compelled to engage in electioneering directly, an unfair advantage over mere mortal Congresscritters of either party. [1] The Demoncrats among them are reduced to the unsatisfactory argument that the 2003 aggression would have been OK, if not positively meritorious, had it indeed been a War For Oil™. They no doubt believe it and may convince a few swing voters by going on about it, but all the same, Mr. Bones, what icky spinach it is!

Then there is the SOFA: "There is not going to be a valid objection," from Congress, he predicted. Crocker Effendi is overreachin’ his expertise a little at that point, unless he only means that he personally and his Little Brother and their ideobuddy Professor Yoo &c. &c. will not concede any validity. Beyond that, I believe the Supreme Court still gets to decide such questions. That will take years, of course. Meanwhile, should J. Sidney fall short of election, one of the internal contradictions of Republican Party extremism may be exposed to daylight for a change. Little Brother has evidently announced in so many words that He expects to "lock in" His successor as regards the 2003 aggression and possibly as regards Kiddie Krusadin’ in general. But Hillary XLIV Clinton would inherit not just the proposed cuffs and shackles, but all those Yootiful precedents whereby George XLIII Bush established that nothin’ and nobody was ever gonna lock Him in! That would have been a fun show to watch, although I daresay Commanderissimo McCain will be an entertainment as well, at least if you live in the holy Homeland rather than in Peaceful Freedumbia or some other occupied boondock.

Moving onwards, here is the Proconsul schemin’ out loud for his Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology:

... the spiral won't begin the minute a new Democratic president calls for a withdrawal of troops, but perhaps a good deal earlier, as Iraqis make their bets on how the elections will turn out. Crocker described what would happen if Iraqis were to start thinking the U.S. was on the way out. "If the Iraqis think we aren't staying," he said, "then the spirit of compromise goes away because it gets too damn risky. People will start to worry about community survival." Worried that the Americans might leave, Iraqis at all levels will turn back to their local militias or tribal allegiances for protection. Or, Iraqis will cling more certainly to the comfortable tribal allegiances making reconciliation and power-sharing harder.

That’s clever and cynical, though well over the heads of Televisionland and the electorate. Also over the heads of certain "small group reporters and columnists Friday afternoon," to judge by how quickly J. Dickerson, whoever he is, reduces it to conventional dove-donkey wisdom:

It may be that if Iraqis read the field and bet on a Democratic winner, they'll snap into focus, as many of Bush's critics say only will only happen as the result of a pull out. Under withdrawal pressure, they might be motivated to support a government crackdown on the militias and make compromises. In that case, despite his predictions, Crocker's job would actually get easier in his final months.

Perhaps one neo-Iraqi subject of AEI and GOP and DOD in every ten thousand is capable of following the politics of the holy Homeland with adequate comprehension. "If Iraqis read the field and bet" is only duncery.

Nothing could be more conventionally wise than the "withdrawal pressure," so let us not call that part a rude name but merely point out that there has been so much yimmer-yammer about it already that poor M. al-Málikí would probably have enough common sense to wait and see, should J. Sidney show signs of falterin’. Núrí Kamál can always run home to London if the Brave New Former Iraq™ does not work out, after all. He need not even rush to make reservations, not even if he winds up stuck having to deal with Hillary XLIV Clinton. Would the hyperpowered palefaces really just pack up and walk away after throwin’ so much bad money into the bushogenic quagmire? Poor M. al-Málikí is a thorough OnePercenter, the opinion of most neo-Iraqi subjects about matters of State is ignorant trash and well he knows it. It would be natural for him to expect Hillary XLIV to take much the same view, and he would be right so to expect. (As I expect, that is.)

So in short this "withdrawal pressure" product endorsed by Miss Sappy [2] and Mr. Dickerson of Slate might conceivably work wonders if it were ever tried, but it is not going to be tried and thus we will never know for sure. [3]

Play it again, Sam: "So shall the world go on, / To good malignant, to bad men benign."

Happy days.


____
[1] Reading about it a second time, I notice that Crocker Effendi was not addressin’ Senators and Representatives when he made these remarks, but "a small group of reporters and columnists Friday afternoon in a windowless conference room at the State Department." So he more or less is electioneerin’ after all, though genteelly. But which select reporter or Party-friendly columnist do we get it through in Slate? Mr. John Dickerson himself, I suppose, whoever he may be.


[2] That's sapientia conventionalis as nicknamed by some of her nonenthusiasts.


[3] Probably just as well in the long run. To make a regular practice or theoretical policy of invasionizin’ other people's countries so as to exert pressure by threatenin’ to leave could easily be made to sound like clinical insanity. And obviously only a tiny portion of the planet could ever be weekly-standardised with a procedure so round-about and frightfully expensive as that one. But God knows best.

Cartoono's Bane

The Christian Science Monitor story today based on an interview with someone who said he was an IAI gunrunner, was headed "Sunni insurgents still aim to oust US, Shiites." That's nonsensical, misleading, and pretty clearly intended to fan the "inevitable civil war" psychosis that is at the core of the continued-occupation argument. You might think it was just a slip, but in the article itself there is this: "One IAI goal is to turn Iraq into a state similar to Saudi Arabia, which adheres to a puritanical form of Sunni Islam", another stunning piece of wartime propaganda. The political views of the resistance factions are worth studying if anyone could do so, and they range on a spectrum from secular to various shades of Islamist. But to say that IAI = Saudi Arabia, without any justification, and without any mention of the range of political views in the Sunni resistance, is like saying, as in fact they did in the headline, that the IAI wants to "oust Shiites from Iraq": it is pure scare-propaganda. It sounds to me as if they have gotten themselves a government-controlled editorial function over there at that progressive institution, something that will be worth paying attention to.

Those rigidly nonsectarian Sunnapologist gentry at Mu’ámara Junction, who offer to guide ignorant Occidentals through all the chickentracks of the native press, cannot really be unaware that in lesser journalisms stories have been known to appear with headlines that suggest some editor did not trouble to read what she was labeling. It looks to me, Mr. Bones, as if they have got themselves into a wannabe-government-censorial mode over there....

But seriously, sir, the real reason why Dr. Cartoonoclastes finds that piece displeasing and resolves to twistify it to death is not far to seek: Mr. Dagher has noticed and spoken about the extraordinary disintegration of the former Sunní Ascendancy in ex-Iraq:

... IAI continues to have a loose affiliation with other factions that share its outlook, such as Muhammad's Army, the Rashideen Army, and Mujahedeen Army. The IAI's website also mentions a strand of Ansar al-Sunna, which has been linked to Al Qaeda in the past, as an additional ally. Adding to the complexity is the role of former regime figures. Abu Abdullah says Rashideen is strongly backed by Ahmed al-Douri.... Even Sunni Arab parties at the core of the US-backed political process, such as the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) of Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, are ambivalent .....

The total nakedness of Humpty-Dumpty's fragmentation is not disclosed, of course. Even fishwrap customers who can put up with Mary Baker Eddy would not be able to put up with that wilderness of factions and factionettes and factionoids, but the general idea of the smash-up is, for once, conveyed. Cartoono dearly wishes that once should be the end of such impudent subversion, and he may get his wish, though that is scarcely the same thing as gaining his ends.

Ms. Editor's headline might be challenged, but the exercise would be pointless if Cartoono is permitted to rewrite it first. She said "In Iraq, Sunni insurgents still aim to oust U.S., Shiites / In an interview, a member of the Islamic Army of Iraq speaks of his group's long-term goals." He said "That the IAI wants to 'oust Shiites from Iraq' [is] pure scare-propaganda." Needless to say, Mr. Bones, now that you have examined the evidence, "oust" will do well enough if understood with forked ear: the militant extremist Republicans are to be kicked all the way out of the country, the heretics and hillbillies are only to be kicked out of power and restored to that state of Bint-Yeorian dhimmitudo that has traditionally become them so well.

When it comes to the Wahhábí horse, Ms. Editor is blameless and Mr. Dagher maybe deserves a slap on the wrist. There can not be half a dozen faith-crazies in the Islamic Army of Iraq (or in any other smithereen of TwentyPercenterdom) who want to redecorate the former Iraq to match the current Sa‘údiyya. I should guess that "Abú ‘Abdalláh" described his notion of the IAI's notion of Utopia, and then Mr. Dagher decided unilaterally that the radiant vision seemed a lot like you-know-where. Xian Scientologists have some antecedent idea of the Great Cardboard Kingdom, after all, whereas a purist expression like "salafí theocracy" might not convey very much to them.

Naturally poor AA himself must have had nothing to do with sheer tripe like Cartoono's "IAI = Saudi Arabia." And poor is AA indeed, after getting an honourary demotion from "former Iraqi military officer who was briefly jailed during Saddam Hussein's rule for his Islamic sympathies" to "gunrunner"!

(Oh, well, Mr. Bones, when you don't like the message getting out, why not shoot the messenger a little?)

Mu’ámara Junction being what it is, disappointment would have ensued if "that progressive institution," the Christian Science Monitor, had not been accused of selling out to psychosis-fanners.

Disappointment has not ensued. O lucky us!

"The Plan" -- Dr. Cartoonoclastes’ Big Picture

Dr. Cartoonoclastes rambles badly once he gets revved up, so his own account of what the Forces of Evil in the former Iraq are up to lacks punch. I shall therefore give you my summatorial version, Mr. Bones:

There are three Forces of Evil, one centered on Bush, one on poor M. al-Málikí, and a third, which is more or less the Salvific Awakeners of Sunnidom. All three have enemies at "home," so to speak: Democrats, Sadrists/Virtutites, and "takfírís" respectively. The three FOEs have come up with the not very remarkable plan of "conspiring" to put down their own internal troublemakers so that afterwards evil may reign unchecked. The Baní s-Sahwa have clobbered "al-Qá‘ida," poor M. al-Málikí is now returning the favor by solving the Sadr problem, and once that is done, AEI-GOP-DOD will be irresistible in the holy Homeland. Everybody wins. "So shall the world go on, / To good malignant, to bad men benign."

Of course the part of this iron triangle that the MJ gentry really care about, the Sunninterní part, is more complicated than the rest. Cartoonoclastes and the gang don't really like Ladinite faith-crazies any more than they like Bribe-a-Tribe™ pensioners. However their rigid nonsectarianism makes it very difficult for them ever to disapprove of anybody Sunní out loud. It has also made it difficult for Cartoono to admit that he understands why AEI-GOP-DOD fans are pleased with Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton and West Point, the Ever-Victorious suRGe of ’07™ having hitherto been directed 90-95% at the Natural Masters of Mesopotamia, and only 5-10% at heretical covens and conventicles. The Second Muqtadan War has changed that, it looks like, and accordingly the self-censorship at Mu’ámara Junction has been relaxed a little:

Naturally, in what concerns something as dear to the hearts of Bush administration as "Al-Qaeda", you have to be careful, but in this case the decline-of-the-ISI thesis seems to have some corroboration in the decline in suicide bombings (and in the case of my modest attempt to monitor jihadi sites, what I believe is a noticeable drop in claims and other statements by the ISI). Anyway, it doesn't seem a bad assumption that ISI is in decline or retreat in Iraq.

Not a bad assumption today, but a couple of weeks ago, it would have been fort mauvais to mention such a set-back for strictly nonsectarian Sunnianity even as a mere working hypothesis. Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis, doncha know, Mr. Bones?

Cartoono muddies his waters of conspiracy by dragging in the evil Qommies, perhaps taking them rather than the Democrats, or in addition to them, to be Rancho Crawford's bête noire:

The obvious objection [to picking on Muqtadae] is that the Mahdi Army is not as "Iranian" as Badr and the other Shiite militias that are allied with Maliki himself. But in this context that probably doesn't matter. Because from the standpoint of the Sunni actors the US is targeting, "Iran" means the parties to the sectarian wars in Baghdad post-February 2006, and wherever the truth may lie, to many that means the Mahdi Army. "We cleared out AQ, now you clear out Mahdi", would be the idea.

Those "Sunni actors the US is targeting" are of course the Salvific Awakeners. Mark how Cartoonoclastes' pious nonsectarianism prevents him from saying in so many words that the Bribe-a-Tribers have made the wrong alliance and ought to be helping the Sadristas out -- apparently even if the latter did dabble in ethnic cleansing a little bit. [1] Anyhow, the Qommies themselves do not make an appearance, they are merely a sort of scarecrow deployed by the AEI-GOP-DOD coalition in order to distract and divide the Natural Master community. [2]

Up to what does this three-headed monster lead? That part is rather specific and surprising, so let Cartoono speak for himself:

The bottom line is that, for the Americans, the existence of some kind of a "government" with at least some Sunni representation is a requirement to prop up the credibility of the proposed long-term bilateral security agreeement. The way to get there, they seem to have decided, (after many months of pussyfooting with "national reconciliation" meetings here and there), is by the good old sectarian way, in this case playing on anti-Sadr sentiment going back to the cleansing days, or earlier.

Now at this point, Mr. Bones, the honourable and gallant conspiratorializer is talking mainly about our own holy Homeland, so I shall venture to contradict him and affirm that it is very unlikely that the AEI-GOP-DOD coalition of the willful attach half as much attention to a SOFA with the International Zone neorégime as he supposes, and maybe unlikelier still that anybody in the former Iraq does beyond a narrow circle around poor M. al-Málikí. Cartoonoclastes will, as always, be viewing the question Sunní-side up; I suppose he fancies that the Salvific Awakeners will take a SOFA as a pledge of permanent affection from "the Americans." If so, they, the Baní s-Sahwa, are even worse idiots than Cartoono takes them for -- but probably his claim is simply not so to begin with. [3]

As a sort of curiosity, sir, notice that the Boy-'n'-Party perps would repudiate that smear about "the good old sectarian way." They think, quite sincerely, that they stand for Nationalism (huzzah!) in the former Iraq. All three FOE's think that, although with the Supreme Hakemes the notion has to be glossed a little, maybe. Oddly enough, the only avowed sectarians are the Free Kurds, who are really only harmless sectorians.


_____
[1] If that is not how "wherever the truth may lie" decodes, then I cannot decode it.

If I got it right, the gentry of MJ are walking through a minefield here: in addition to the familiar problem of knocking some sense into the weaker brethren and sistern of their own faction, they face the problem of forgiving injuries done to somebody else and then inviting that somebody else to join in the reconciliation all ’round. A touchy business.


[2] This is more nearly reality-based than usual, though it could have been strronger still if Cartoono had emphasized the usefulness of anti-Qommienism outside the former Iraq -- playing on His Hashimí Highness's fears of a "Shí‘í crescent" and reminding everybody of Gen. Mubárak's casual assumption that every Twelver is a fifth columnist for the Safavids and so on and so forth.


[3] Cartoono neglects the North American apex of the iron triangle, though that is where most human events are dictated from. It should be added to his write-up that "playing on anti-Sadr sentiment" may work as well or better at Topeka than at Takrít. Militant extremist Republicans have not forgotten that the Mahdí Army ventured to shoot at their operatives, and as to forgivin’ -- forget it!

"might not ‘echo’ with Sunnis"

Watch Cartoono bite a hand that only wanted to pet!

Shiite Iraq is on fire, Moqtada addresses his followers and the Iraqi police and Army, and your comment is that it might not "echo" with Sunnis because it's "rhetoric".

In Old Chicagoland, and at Noble Najaf, "rhetoric" is not a word of abuse. But never mind that, let's have the aberrant comment:

Interesting as always Badger. A few notes: -I think "haddam" is "destroyer". Referring to Saddam or maybe Satan? -Interesting that he [Sadr III] condemns sectarian parties given the way his and the Mahdi Army are seen as very much that. But then that is the intermingling of the Sadrist trend with broader nationalist discourse that is a topic you and others have addressed many times. -Again, I am left wondering how this echoes within other nationalist quarters? I greatly appreciate your efforts, it helps show just how much Sadr does emphasize rhetorically unity and nationalism. But is that voice heard or believed given on the ground death squads and such over the past few years? And more specifically in the current moment where all the Green Zone parties of all sectarian stripes seem to be lining up against Sadr and where the Awakenings seem to have a stake in defending the existing structure, do the Sadrists get any traction beyond their own (admittedly large) base?

If you can think yourself into the dir..., the tight little orthodoxy of Mu’ámara Junction, Mr. Bones, it is not too difficult to make out how Comrade Deviationist went wrong. He is mildly objectionable to impartial judgment in that he abuses the noble name of Rhetoric, suggesting that only insincerity has resort to it. That error is only mildly objectionable, it allows that the insincerity may be unconscious or inadvertent.

Such, I take it, is the way Mr. Deviation misdeploys "rhetoric" here: Master Muqtadae has talked lots and lots about the national identity and patriotic unity of all ex-Iraqis, but he has not actually done much in that direction -- certainly far from enough to satisfy the MJ gentry in full. The resulting gap between deed and word might have been bridged with the equivalent of "Bush lied," but Mr. Deviation did not care to be so rude as that about a (potential) fellow-traveler with the Mu’ámariyyan Cause, so he contents himself with charging that Sadr commited rhetoric. The question of whether the Rev. Señorito has been deliberately trying to snooker the Sunninternís is left open.

You and I, Mr. Bones, must applaud the judgement, if not his wording of it. Mr. Deviation cannot possibly know anything much for sure about other people's subjective sincerity, so when he talks accordingly, he talks well. Perhaps not absolutely as well as he might, to be sure, since there is no way to tell whether he admits our own guidline that everybody in politics is to be presumed sincere until clearly proved otherwise. One swallow does not make the summer, perhaps only friends of the Mu’ámariyyan Cause get such allowances extended to them. (Mr. Deviation posts very little, at least since we have learned to recognize his nom de guebbe.)

Such was the stimulus. The response from Cartoonoclastes is as if he had heard the words "Sadr lies." Having already worked the renegade firebrand cleric™ into his vast and kaleidoscopic jigsaw puzzle in a different capacity, one incompatible with the faintest suggestion that the Sadr Tendency might be taking somebody Sunní for a ride, Cartoono is alarmed and indignant.

Perhaps Cartoono is a bit more alarmed and indignant than the occasion warrants, even misunderstood, because Mr. Deviation opens the door to far worse offenders than himself and his "rhetoric." Label it as you please, the word-deed gap actually exists. Perhaps under the yoke of an Occupyin’ Party, there is no way the gap could not exist. Every indig pol and panacea vendor, even poor M. al-Málikí & Cie., even the virtuous shootists!, is forced to deal in promissory notes, as it were, to talk about what she and her crew will do after the extremist Republicans finally go away -- without much attempt to start doing it prematurely. [1]

The word-deed gap exists, and it exists more or less universally, and talking about "rhetoric" risks drawing attention to it. Certain parts of the word-deed gap are inconvenient for the great Mu’ámariyyan Cause, even as other parts of it inconvenience lesser ideologues and chauvinizers without the Cause. Under these circumstances, stuff like " intermingling of the Sadrist trend with broader nationalist discourse" and "how much Sadr does emphasize rhetorically unity and nationalism" can be dangerous. Mr. Deviation may wish only to insinuate "Muqtadae has not done much for us, really" but once that has been insinuated, a thought like "But then, how much have we done for Muqtadae?" could easily arise by false analogy.

To accept Cartoonoclastes’ picturesque (and rhetorical) account of the present state of Peaceful Freedumbia -- "Shiite Iraq is on fire" -- aggravates the danger. False analogizers might even arrive at "For that matter, what are we doing for Muqtadae right now, in this present critical discrimination of things?" Unfortunately that silly question could be treated as real rather than rhetorical and then answered in part as follows :

"A member of the IAF, Ammar Abdulsattar called for giving this idea of political-party disarmament a condition for participating in elections, legislative form in parliament. He told Al-Hayát : "We need to issue a law on political parties as soon as possible, and have it include what was in the announcement [by the Council on National Security about no armed parties participating in elections]... And Abdulsattar said he sees March 25 [when Chief Commander Maliki went to Basra] as an important watershed in Iraqi history, and as the inauguration of a nation of laws." [ Translation and annotation due to Dr. Cartoonoclastes]

__
[1] Núrí Jawád Kamál may personally have reached the point where he has ceased expecting operatives of the militant GOP ever to depart at all, and he may even be rather happy that they will be stayin’. Yet that is not what he says for public consumption, Mr. Bones, and thus not what our rule requires us to presume sincere.

As to the noble shootists of the Sunnintern, it might seem plausible to consider their very shooting as itself a form of postoccupational dispensationalism. Careful analysis will, however, reveal that they agree amongst themselves so little that one may treat them as the Shadow Of Things To Come only in the sense that there would probably be lots of shooting in any neorégime that they preside over. So it may be just as well that their success and victory remain highly improbable. But God knows best.

The Politics of Honour®

One of the few surprising developments goin’, Mr. Bones, in Big Management Party circles, is that General Lord George Will viscerally dislikes his nominee presumptive, the Flyboy Hero. The riffraff of Rio Limbaugh share his Lordship's dislike, but the riffraff do not count, because they are at least as inferior cerebrally and high-culturally as J. Sidney is himself. His Lordship the pseudotory, on the other hand, citizen G. Frederick Will the "little friend of Eddie Burke" wannabe, can write up the rumbles from his gut in a manner that furnishes entertainment for post-wombschoolers.

The amount of instruction that accompanies the fun side of his Lordship's pseudotorianity is not large. By this late stage of the moral progress of the human race, it is no secret from most students that what passed with Mr. Burke for philosophy of politics was largely a matter of elegantly written-up gut rumbles. Once that cat is removed from its bag and examined in sunlight, using it to flog poor M. Rousseau the way Eddie intended in his gallophobomaniacal phase becomes too problematical to inspire much zeal now that nobody's insides at all are terrorized of Jean-Jacques and his supposed disciples any longer. [1]

As you might expect, Mr. Bones, what General Lord George thinks is wrong with J. Sidney McCain is not too distant from my own doubts about Ma Will's boy:

McCain practices the politics of honor: he thinks that whatever his instincts tell him is honorable must be so and that those who think otherwise are dishonorable. This makes him difficult to deal with but does no other harm, as long as it is kept separate from governing.

Poor Eddie B. will be rotating in his grave at the thought that Honour and Policy must never be allowed to meet and compare notes! But let us not take shots at our betters that are too cheap, Mr. Bones! General Lord George may have scribbled under the pressure of a deadline and not written what best corresponds to his lordly gut rumbles. Or at least his Lordship might have reworded himself a little once the obvious had been pointed out.

From our own subaristo point of view, sir, far less exalted than that of Lord George, it would be flatly absurd to claim that being "difficult to deal with" is, or ought to be, or even can be, "kept separate from governing." What would Old Nick do? Not a hard question: Signore Machiavelli would be difficult to deal with when that plan advances the interests of the State, and as laid back as you please, when that advances the interests of the State. A good deal must depend on whom one deals with and what it is that one deals about. (Oddly enough!)

Notice that his Lordship’s advice would be impeccable if directed to Mme. Elizabeth Windsor. Certainly she must never be "difficult to deal with." Equally certainly, she has as good as nothing to do with governing in the sense that will shortly become applicable to Commanderissimo McCain. His pseudotorianity would have to be pushed to the point of dementia, however, for General Lord George to have nothing more to say to the Yank nation about J. Sidney than that he might conceivably make a passable decorative hereditary monarch. You or I, Mr. Bones, might be sarcastic at the Flyboy Hero's expense in that fashion, but only because we think pseudotorianity (and most non-extinct Torydom too) is piffle to begin with.

The snark is probably not worth the hunt, but I suppose we must check whether General Lord George scribbles anythin’ in his op-ed to cast additional light on what his lordly gut understands by the word "honour."

His Lordship is willing enough to praise J. Sidney for agreein’ with basic presuppositions of the Party of Grant:

John McCain's policy minimalism ... merits compliments. He says "it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers." For now, he is with Senate Republicans in opposing the Democrats' proposal to empower judges to rewrite the terms of some mortgages, an idea that strikes at the sanctity of contracts and hence at the ethic of promise-keeping that is fundamental to social life. He opposes an additional dose of the toxin that has made the credit system sick -- he favors strengthening rather than weakening down-payment requirements for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration. And he has admirably avoided the rhetoric of victimology, such as that used when the Post editorialized that "lenders pushed tens of billions of dollars in potentially high-interest mortgage debt on people ill-equipped to handle it."

"The sanctity of contracts ... the ethic of promise-keeping that is fundamental to social life" might be taken at Wombschool Normal University to involve a point or points of traditional Honour, but even if we pass over that serious boo-boo, the familiar Big Management Party idol that Lord George burns his incense to has very little to do with J. Sidney McCain in particular. Indeed, "For now, he is with Senate Republicans" gives the impression that JSM might impetuously decide to take a sledge hammer to the alleged ethical fundament of Western Sieve at any moment. General Lord George might, given some temerity from the reader's side, be understood to imply here that J. Sidney's loyalty to Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology, being inferior to that of Senate Republicans generically, is inadequate. That would bring old-fangled Honour into play, but it can scarcely be what his Lordship originally intended when he set out to swiftboat the man McCain. Respice finem, Mr. Bones, remember where we are headed: his Lordship's bottom line is to be that JSM possesses Honour, not that he lacks it.

General Lord George then drools on in his pseudotory or bourgeois gentilhomme vein for several paragraphs of economics without mentioning the devoted victim at all. Then, out of the blue, comes the bolt:

McCain's only solecism is his loopy idea that mortgage lenders should make a "response" that is "similar" to General Motors' policy of interest-free financing immediately after Sept. 11. Patting himself on the back, as is his wont, McCain said he is too honorable to "play election-year politics" or "allow dogma to override common sense." Then he cast this issue as he casts too many issues, as a matter of patriotism, saying of lenders: "They've been asking the government to help them out. I'm now calling on them to help their customers and their nation out." Good grief. Where to begin? GM initiated that policy for a corporation's best reason -- business rationality. The policy's purpose was to shed inventory, not make a patriotic gesture with shareholders' money or in response to political pressure.

Plainly General Lord George Will does not have that old problem about servicing two masters simultaneously. His gut and his brain alike are owned by Mammon Inc. lock, stock and barrel -- and his Lordship is proud of it, too! Lord George throws that "corporation's best reason -- business rationality" down like a gauntlet. Any recreant knight who ventures that Big Management may, if it wishes, flirt with the filth of McCainiac ‘solecism’ and occasionally do somethin’ responsive or patriotic that may be slightly business-irrational will have to prove it upon the body of George Frederick Will!

’Tis a pretty picture, a nice self-exposé of the absurdity of pseudotorianity. But J. Sidney McCain and traditional Honour have nothing worth mentioning to do with this show. And despite the false lure of "Where to begin?", that’s all the show there is, there ain’t no more. Today's megillah from Lord George contains only one microparagraph after the two just borrowed, the one I quoted first.

On Planet Will, the two words "business rationality" are the ace of trumps and take every trick. Travellers to that destination ought to be aware of the local folkways before they disembark from their spaceship, otherwise they may easily lapse into solecism or worse. This message is worth getting out, which makes it regrettable that General Lord George should have festooned his caveat for tourists with so much specifically Terran politics that it rather gets lost sight of.

Meanwhile J. Sidney may be chucklin’ to himself that lone enemies like General Lord George Will can be more helpful than whole packs and scads and hordes of good-hearted friends. His electoral prospects can only benefit from the rumor getting around that he is wobbly on the Business Rationality Primacy Axiom. The core economic OnePercenters have come aboard the Swiftboat Express™ already, it is swing voters and Big Party base-and-vile that McCain needs to dupe, and almost all of these wombschool witlings are mechanically conditioned to think well of Honour and Patriotism.

As for "business rationality," what's that?

Max Weber's Sunday Morning Service

Rather than cast pearls before aardvarks, Mr. Bones, I think I'll set my miniature Statist florilegium down here with you.

(1) Former Iraqi Premier Iyad Allawi said matters in Iraq "are getting out of the authority's hands five years after changing the former regime," warning that "the political quota system and militia policies would double the bloodshed in the country. Iraq, after five years, is still a state without institutions. The militias continue to pervade the government machinery and the political quota system is still the key factor in the government's activities. (...) These entities, whether inside or outside the state apparatus, are illegal, and their emergence is a logical outcome of the militia policies."


(2) A new assessment of U.S. policy in Iraq by (...) the U.S. Institute of Peace (...) [preaches] "Rather than trying to resolve long-term, controversial political issues about the nature of the Iraqi state, the U.S. could let those questions linger and instead work on governing capacity building at the provincial and local levels and cultivating new, local leaders (...) Reductions in troop levels will likely result in some degree of chaos and violence no matter what. The decentralized, fragmented political dynamic in Iraq cannot be reversed."


(3) [The Arab Advocate advocates] "The US occupier and Iran have destroyed the state of Iraq and turned it into a playground where both sides compete for influence while the Iraqi people continue to suffer under horrific conditions. Meanwhile sectarian gangsters in Iraq -- believers in 'Shi'itism' much more than Iraqi nationalism (a minority among Iraqis and Shia) -- continue their simultaneous, self-serving collaboration with the 'Great Satan' and Iran both of which share common objectives in the territories that comprised the former state of Iraq, and have much more in common with each other than they do with any of their shared puppets."


(4) Hath not Himself said, with emphasis in the original, Politischer Verband soll ein Herrschaftsverband dann und insoweit heißen, als sein Bestand und die Geltung seiner Ordnungen innerhalb eines angebbaren geographischen Gebiets kontinuierlich durch Anwendung und Androhung physischen Zwangs seitens des Verwaltungsstabes garantiert werden. Staat soll ein politischer Anstaltsbetrieb heißen, wenn und insoweit sein Verwaltungsstab erfolgreich das Monopol legitimen physischen Zwanges für die Durchführung der Ordnungen in Anspruch nimmt." ?

"We simply do not yet know"

The semi-official Young Bonaparte of the glorious AEI-GOP-DOD coalition, Rear-Colonel F. Kagan, has just explained certain deficiencies of the press to customers of R. Murdoch's Weekly Standard:

Because British forces, nominally responsible for the area in which Basra is located, have abandoned the city, there were few coalition forces present and very few Westerners at all. Most of the details of the operation publicized in the American press come from Iraqi stringers, the usual anonymous Iraqi officials, and, it seems, some Sadrist media outlets. In all previous operations where U.S. forces were present, we have learned that such information is of limited value. We simply do not yet know how well the ISF acquitted itself in the actual fighting, what if any areas were cleared, who was resisting, and so on.

The bright side of that is that Freddy does not claim to be in possession of Secret Right-Wing Truth from (paleface) sources loyal to Boy and Party and Ideology.

Another side of it, though, is that the Glorious Coalition’s native subjects do not get much respect, not even the two percent or ten percent of them who think AEI tank thoughts and emote GOP values. Even the latest George Washington of Mesopotamia himself is treated abruptly.

The governate of Basra is in fact the (nominally non-nominal) responsibility of the International Zone neorégime, of M. le Président du Conseil N. K. al-Málikí, or -- assuming the analyst is not a card-carryin’ Republican -- of Party Proconsul R. Crocker, or conceivably persons superior to both these down at the TX ranch are the true bosses. It looks as if Colonel Freddy thinks such striped-pants cant is not worth wastin’ any time on, and under other circumstances maybe he’d be right.. In this particular instance, however, the cant has a substantial bearing on the correlation of forces: if AEI and GOP and DOD "simply do not yet know," then either poor M. al-Málikí shares the ignorance of the invasionites, or else he tells them stories that they do not altogether trust.[1]

Though this issue is connected with the question "To what extent is the Hannibal of Islamic Da‘wa in control of Basra?", it is not identical. Maybe NKaM does not have enough reliable soldiers and policemen on the spot um sich ganz und gar durchzusetzen, but how about secret state policemen and plain volunteer drop-a-dime informers? [2] Poor M. al-Málikí may perhaps be excused for not actually ruling "his own" "state," but surely he may be expected to know what goes on inside those "internationally recognized boundaries" that mock him from the maps? "A cat may spy on a king," says the proverb. And of course Hannibal II makes the appropriate operatives of AEI and GOP and DOD privy to all his own intelligence, does he not? [3]

Well, as a matter of fact, maybe he doesn't. Rear-Colonel Freddy words his way carefully around a matter touchy for the glory of the Glorious Coalition:

The attack appears to have resulted from an impulsive order by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who had gone down to Basra to see the preparations for a more deliberate operation then being planned.

Once again His Excellency gets scant respect, being made to appear like a small boy in a candy shop. More important, how can AEI and GOP and DOD ever know in advance what their Little Foreign Friends are goin’ta do, when those impulsive LFF's don't know themselves? "Half devil and half child," saith St. Rudyard, and fat Freddy might be tempted to agree, imperialistically incorrect though the expression of such feelin’s about the LBW, lesser breeds without, has become since Kipling's day. [4]
___
On a more cosmic level, Rear-Col. F. Kagan may have just discovered or invented an entirely new rationale for the President-Apparent's new Hundred Years’ War: [T] here were few coalition forces present and very few Westerners at all . . . -- and look what happened! Tank thinkers of the American Ideological Enterprise should find it easy enough to expand upon that serendipitous insight, to conclude that makin’ the world really safe for demoplutocracy requires lots of small garrisons of paleface coalition operatives scattered all over Gore's green earth, and then spell out exactly how many warm bodies are needed exactly where.

Not being any direction of colonel personally, and handicapped by thinking in prose rather than PowerPoint® the way glorious coalitionites can and do, I can not say much about the details beyond the obvious suggestion that every town outside the holy Homeland (and possibly Airstrip One as well) that has as many inhabitants as Basra [5] should have as many Western Watchers™ stationed in it as Rear-Col. Freddy and other qualified spooks and creeps and violence pros agree would undoubtedly have forestalled the recent unfortunate human events. To be sure, should the expert adherents to Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology decide that it would have required thousands, rather than dozens, of Western Watchers™ to save their Kiddie Krusade from poor M. al-Málikí's impulsiveness, the whole scheme ought to be discarded at once.

But in the meantime, it would not cost much for AEIdeologues or Hoovervillains or Heritagitarians to look into the matter and prepare some preliminary cost-benefit gibberish for their masters’ guidance. That sort of factional research, after all, is why we came to be equipped with Tanks of Thought in the first place, is it not?

Ideally, fat Freddy of AEI and GOP would superintend the project. Not so much because it's his idea, conscious or subliminal, as because it would return him to his roots, from which he has been sadly recedin’ of late. In its original form, the Ever-Victorious Surge of ’07™ was conceived by F. Kagan in exactly the manner best suited to a Western Watchers™ scheme, namely as a labour-savin’ device. Had EVS07 been adopted and enacted by the glorious coalitionites strictly according to the letter, AEI and GOP and DOD would have found themselves at "war" with only six million of their neo-Iraqi subjects instead of twenty-odd million, with their requirements for IED-fodder reduced proportionately.

Once the scheme got out of the hands of the Baní Kagan, though, various irrelevant bells and whistles were stuck on to appeal to other neocomrades, and then when Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton and West Point began actual surgin’, naturally his pet irrelevancies (mostly involving neo-McNamaran counterinsurgency) becaome mandatory. What with one thing and another, Goethe's maxim about In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister has not often been raped so thoroughly as it has been by the glorious coalitionites. "Not with a bang, but a whimper": what started as sURGe, has ended as not much better than mission creep. [6]

Maybe Freddy K. could get other Big Management Party perps besides himself back on an intellectually respectable track if he had a chance to start over more or less from scratch. Or, more precisely, to start over from Economy of Force. As things stand, the little ideoladdie has wound up defendin’ everythin’ that is done in the name of "his" Ever-Victorious Surge of ’07™, with no regard at all to whether what is done agrees with the original plan of the thing or not.

This is corruption, the kind of intellectual corruption that results from AEI rottin’ the brain. Rear-Colonel F. Kagan's cerebral degeneration is not yet so advanced as that of V. D. H. Blimp or R. M. G. Spook. Freddy is still capable of utterances like "We simply do not yet know how well the ISF acquitted itself in the actual fighting, what if any areas were cleared, who was resisting, and so on." Unfortunately, Freddy is already capable of emittin’ swiftboat tripe and baloney:

Iraq has already demonstrated that it is by far the most serious and determined ally the United States has in the war against al-Qaeda by deploying more forces and taking more casualties in that struggle than any other state. After several years in which Americans feared that the Shia government would attempt to triangulate between Iran and the United States without taking sides, the Iraqi leadership has made its choice clear. It chose America. What will we choose? [7]

____
[1] Bein’ self-encumbered with an LFF, Little Foreign Friend, like Núrí (Jawád) Kamál is no bowl of cherries; one does not have to root for Team Aggression to appreciate the distress they must sometimes feel at their indig clients' misbehaviour.

In the few hours since Freddy scribbled his latest apologetic, NKaM has changed his stance in a major way: Iraqi Premier Suspends Government Raids on Militias , headline the fiends of the MSM. No large number of hours can have passed, seeing that "On Thursday, Mr. Maliki said Basra was only the first stage of continuing operations to crack down on illegal militias and criminal gangs" and it is now [04/05/2008 05:48AM] still early on Saturday at Rancho Crawford.


[2] After five years of futzin’ around in their semiconquered provinces, AEI and GOP and DOD might reasonably be asked why they do not have paleface equivalents to secret state policemen on the spot at Basra, as part of a functional Drop-a-Dime Network that covers all of the former Iraq. Were they relyin’ on poodle people from Airstrip One, perhaps, who eventually let them down? But for that matter, did the redcoats themselves ever develop such rapport with the local wogs as used to be regularly boasted of and invidiously contrasted with cowpoker occupational therapy? Even real outstandin’ GOP geniuses under the command of F. Kagan in person couldn't take the canny Brits’ D-a-D over if it didn't exist.


[3] It has been claimed repeatedly that M. Muwaffaq ar-Rubay‘í, "national" "security" adviser to poor M. al-Málikí, really works for the DIA/CIA/NSA/FBI alphabet soup of holy Homelanders. If true, that means that his reports go first and foremost to the glorious AEI-GOP-DOD coalitionites, so perhaps Rear-Col. F. Kagan of AEI and GOP knows all about what is in them.

However one can not exclude the possibility that Hannibal II of Da‘wa gets info copies. "Really works for" is not a perfectly clear conception in this sphere. It scarcely matters who pays the spook’s salary. One might say such a creep "really works for" whichever paymaster he conceals less from, but there is no reason to suppose that any paymaster gets told everything the creep believes to be the case. Or that any receives dezinformatsiya exclusively either.

As with M. le Docteur Tchélabí, so with M. ar-Rubay‘í: a really clever bastard in either position should be able to set up as tin-horn dictator of Peaceful Freedumbia. Since neither has managed the trick in five years, one should probably conclude that neither is quite clever enough. But God knows best.


[4] The logical upshot would be for the glorious coalitionites to ditch "impulsive" Hannibal II of Da‘wa at this juncture and set some other indig pol up on the white prancer at the head of the parade through the native quarter. But that rumor has floated by a dozen times before and Team Aggression never actually did it. The chances that they will do it now range from zero to negligible. As before, they don't have any satisfactory candidate, and to make a public mockery of the Four Pillars of Fudge upon which Peaceful Freedumbia rests -- the sovereignty, and independence, and constitutionality, and democracy of the I.Z. neorégime -- merely for the sake of installin’ a different impulsive incompetent is so dumb an idea that even a Harvard Victory School MBA might spot the flaws in it.

It would not be surprising if Freddy confers with other Big Management Party perps about the theoretical possibility of makin’ a coup against their own bastard at New Baghdád, but I'd be flabbergasted if they take action. Meanwhile this is not a topic that Big Management cares to discuss out loud where they might be overheard, not even in so friendly a forum as the Weekly Rupert.


[5] 2.600.000, guesses Wikipedia.


[6] One is not a Juan Cole or a Cartoonoclastes to ignore or deny that certain results of value -- mainly from narrow partisan AEI and GOP and DOD standpoints, but perhaps from others also -- have emerged from the Ever-Victorious Surge of ’07™.

It turns out, for example, that the expression "martial law" still refers to a workable plan. Some of us were never inclined to doubt that one can perform the routine work of a large metropolitan police department with assault rifles and air strikes even after the Big Bang of 2001. It does no harm to have additional evidence for what one knew already, and, in other such cases, it may even turn out that one knows a few things incorrectly. Half of Soc. Sci. is a joke along those lines, but nobody wants to abolish it on that account. The same applies to Mil. Sci., for all I can see to the contrary.


[7] What's bad could always be worse still, no doubt. Master Kagan might have swiftboated "Iraq chose America, what wil DEMOCRATS choose?" Maybe he'll get that far down the greasy slope before J. Sidney McCain has been officially elected and the neocomrades can safely knock it off. God knows best.

Under The Banners of Bozodom

A. ‘One simple question’

... none of the journalists bothered to ask one simple question: if Sadr was so successful, why end the fighting? If Iraq's army was being beaten and Maliki politically weakened, why not press the fight and make the government collapse? As an American military officer serving in southern Iraq told us, "Claiming a 'victory' and then withdrawing from the battlefield is the tactic of someone that is losing."

Big Party neocomrades W. Roggio and D. Gartenstein-Ross have a legitimate target here. The (intellectually respectable) aggression-language press found it too difficult or unpleasant to follow the new Alexander down to Basra and watch his show, so NYTC and WPC and LAT and USAT reported badly from the usual hotel lobbies of brave New Baghdád. Neocomrades R. Murdoch and S.-Y. Moon did not insist that the Wall Street Jingo and Brainwashing Town Times march in to fill the gap, oddly enough, but naturally nobody expects serious foreign reportin’ from papers owned by VRWC foreigners. So the field is open for these two honourable and gallant weekly standardisers to standardize pretty much as they please.

What they do with their opportunity to spin and twistify unchecked for Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology is disappointing. They extend fas est et ab hoste doceri to cover the journalistic equivalent of suicide bombing: "If __________ was so successful, why end the fighting?" works exactly the same for everybody, in a case where the fighting did actually terminate. The polemical enemy is annihilated, maybe, but so for sure are the tank-thinkin’ paladins of Wingnut City.

Bein’ about the best keyboard fodder that the Aggression Faction disposes of, WR and DG-R vaguely intuit a difficulty hereabouts. They'd like to pretend that poor M. al-Málikí -- quite unlike the Rev. Señorito as-Sadr -- continues to fight fiercely for dear old AEI and GOP and DOD:

But the fact is that the Maliki government did not agree to the nine-point terms for a truce that Sadr issued, nor did it sue for peace or promise that operations would cease. Instead the Iraqi government called Sadr's order for his fighters to pull off the streets a "positive step," and insisted that operations would continue. "The armed groups who refuse al Sadr's announcement and the pardon we offered will be targets, especially those in possession of heavy weapons," [Hannibal of Da‘wa] said, referring to the ten-day amnesty period for militias to turn in heavy and medium weapons. "Security operations in Basra will continue to stop all the terrorist and criminal activities along with the organized gangs targeting people."

Well, OK, then, stipulate that the scrap of paper in question is no contract and possesses zero (0.00) juridical force -- in short, that there isn't any "truce." (These points are indeed the case, should any subject of AEI-GOP-DOD in Peaceful Freedumbia be so legalistic, and sufficiently secure physically, as to concern herself with the more elegant refinements of public life.) That sword has two edges also, for there is no way the spinsters of Rupert can plausibly make out that Sadr III is bound by his own declamations any more than Hannibal II is bound by them, or either of them by the verbal engagements of the other. Either of them can be scolded for a naughty boy if he breaks his promises, but what the [exp. del.] is that worth nowadays? And in the eyes of superlegal invasion cowboys like Roggio and Gartenstein-Ross, for Pete's sake!

Discarding sentimentality and morals and law reduces us, I take it, to the correlation of farces at Basra considered in terms of Amazing Force pure and simple. So considered, the effective suspension of intramural kidnapping and killing either benefits the weaker pack of Twelvers, or it benefits both packs equally. I'm not sure which, admittedly, and perhaps there is no general rule.[1] Yet in any case, the neocomradely notion that poor M. al-Málikí -- with the AEI-GOP-DOD Godzilla behind him, not to mention the right to appoint an Ambassador to the United Nations -- decisively won last week's hand is not easy to take seriously. Hannibal II had his asymmetrical advantages before he provoked the Second Muqtadan War and he has them still. There was never any faintest question of his losing them, or of Master Muqtadae obtaining them. [2]



[B] ‘the dignity of the person’

Nothing less than reclaiming the history of the West, in Weigel's view, will renew our confidence in our own principles. That history teaches that liberty and equality and the political institutions that support them are not the exclusive work of the modern Enlightenment but also draw on classical and religious sources. It demonstrates that the first of individual rights, religious freedom, is not merely a pragmatic accommodation with the diversity of human experience and judgment, but also a statement about the fundamental nature of the person. It strongly suggests that the Christian belief in the intelligibility of the world provided a powerful impetus to modern science, and fostered a curiosity about humanity that, coupled with the biblical belief in the dignity of the person, spurred Western civilization to study other civilizations to an extent unrivaled by other civilizations. And perhaps paradoxically, the history of freedom and reason in the West, precisely because it encourages an appreciation for religion by showing how our morals and politics have been nourished by biblical faith, can contribute to the construction of a common ground on which to pursue a mutually appreciative and tolerant conversation with Islam.

(‘Reclaiming’ is good.)

In fact, neo-Papism, having since the 1960’s successfully rewritten its own history to advance the latest and trendiest objectives, now kindly offers to supply a Western Sieve product for the broader market, a line of wares comparable to those available from other manufacturers at Wingnut City. Perhaps we old fogies should feel flattered that "the modern Enlightenment" is acknowledged to have anything at all to do with the unquestionable wunnerfulness of Wunnerful US.

The real intellectual history of Greater Europe is of interest to visionary projectors like Weigel, S. J., as a warehouse or quarry from which they can extract what suits their private judgment or their Party purposes for this or that particular modern occasion. To give a blow-by-blow account of everything is the province of Prof. Dryasdust, not of Weigel, S. J., who (at the moment) wants to prepare a handy-dandy little Encheiridion for Kiddie Krusaders, only yet another redaction of Western Civilisation for Dummies. A publication history of that curious work could be a major contribution; it is really odd that nobody seems to have undertaken to write it.

A specifically VC edition of the thing itself is far less exciting, though of course "It ís still a free country, innit?" -- a First Estater neocomrade has as much right to publish thrillers and potboilers as anybody else. I daresay thee and I and Uncle Sam and the human race could manage to scrape through without them, Mr. Bones, but perhaps dignitas humana could not, and it would be unreasonable and uncharitable of us to exact exceptional devotion and self-sacrifice from other folks’ pet notions (as opposed to from the folks themseves, that is). [3]

A collision between Weigel, S. J., and Bob Cardinal Spencer might be entertaining. Imagine the former cross-examined at length about why he should want "to pursue a mutually appreciative and tolerant conversation with Islam"! But maybe that bit is only the reviewer's?

And God knows best. Happy days.


____
[1] The question may have been treated theoretically in Machiavelli's Discorsi or some other work of the higher politics criticism.


[2] The twistifyin’ neocomrades themselves point out that the Khalílzád Konstitution "parliament" presented no obstacle to the ambitious projects of Hannibal of Da‘wa. Quite likely those projects were -- are -- in part technically unkonstitutional, but no matter, we've already established that few of the neoliberated indigs care much for Mr. Madison's old-fashioned parlor games.

Even the lounge-lizard Anglophone journalists of the International Zone were not so incompetent as to talk like that. The only folks who did seem to have been the Sunninterní zealots and maniacs of muqáwama that Miss Lynx and Mr. Badger and Dr. Iconoclastes fellow-travel with. If those weird conspiratorialism-prone gentry were the substantial opposition to the agitprop of W. Roggio and D. Gartenstein-Ross, then the above article might be regarded as a famous victory for Rancho Crawford and Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh instead of a desperate exercise in preëmptive misinterpretation. (And I myself should be Marie of Roumania. Or possibly Jeanne d'Arc.)


[3] One must note, though not necessarily in one's main text, that Weigelanity could be put to aggressive uses; all, or almost all, Western Sieve gizmos can. The essence of Wunnerful Western US having been identified and extracted, litmus tests for the WWU factor might be prepared and administered, with therapy (or whatever) for those who prove to be deficient in the crucial ingredient. Take the late Mr. David Hume of Edinburgh, for instance, as regards "an appreciation for religion" . . . . And so on, and so forth.

But to spoof the Bani Weigel is nearly as eye-glazing as to ballyhoo ’em.

Is Mass Swiftboating "Uncharitable"?

Jestin’ Pilate -- Neocomrade D. Henninger of the Wall Street Jingo -- exhibits no serious interest in the brightest and best of theological virtues. No great loss. People who talk partisan politics usually put all the sweet-puppy, Sabbath-school stuff on ice before setting out to give offense to those they have not the good fortune to agree with.

When what the troublemakers wish to give offense about is Kiddie Krusadin’, they ought either to keep lots and lots of safe distance between caritas and themselves, or else plunge into the deep end of the pool, complete with citations from Augustinus and Ibn Hazy and N. Vincent Peale set forth at length in the original tongues. Makin’ "war" against the Jihád Fiends pretends to be a department of real belligerency and should therefore be held to the sternest intellectual standards of Mars and Bellona. Sophists have before now made out a case that one does evildoers a favor by killin’ ’em, and maimin’ ’em, and collaterally damagin’ folks in their immediate vicinity, and so forth and so on. To classify such behavior as charitable is a perfectly possible intellectual trick, undoubtedly, but it is not one to be played at idly and incidentally.

This morning's particular señorito is only makin’ "war" on alleged aiders and abetters of the Jihád Fiends, and he is doin’ so in a forum where only approved Big Management Party apologists are permitted to address the troops of Lord Mammon. Neither of these additional circumstances is propitious for a grown-up discussion of what is or ain’t "uncharitable."

Fortunately the Jingo's jester Pilate is thoroughly unserious. D. Henninger thinks, if he thinks at all as he scribbles such routine Party bilge, of uncharity as a sort of cousin to libel and slander. He cannot be convicted as long as what he vented seemed to him true at the time. Accordingly, to ask whether it is uncharitable to make doves and donkeys out as hopeful for the success and victory of Global Tourism -- this in the path of the greater glory of Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology, all hail! -- quickly turns into the question of whether there is any persuasive analogy between Tet in 1968 and the Second Muqtadan War forty years on. If there is, the WSJ señorito specimen can be as rude as it likes. If there is not, . . . . Well, I'm not quite sure what would happen in that case, because the specimen thinks its analogy is inexpugnable.

To put it in neocomradely fashion,

Is it uncharitable to suggest that when the fighting erupted in Basra last week between Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the U.S.-trained Iraqi army, some opponents of the war hoped it would become George Bush's Tet Offensive? That is, a battle whose military details are largely irrelevant, but whose sudden violence "proves" to voters that a U.S. military commitment is unwinnable and should be abandoned? It was hard not to miss the antiwar spin coming off reports of the fighting, after a year of unmistakable gains from the Petraeus surge strategy. (...) The Democrats appear so invested in a failure that a half-week of violence erases a year of progress. What is the source of such instincts?

The ellipsis is short, two sentences in which jestin’ Pilate swiftboats particular individuals who can take care of themselves. By my count, Mr. Bones, the final "instincts" is the 181st word of today's pro-Party scribble, and by the time we get to it, theology has sunk out of sight altogether -- unless, indeed, amateur Freudianity is to be so classified. D. Henninger moves on rapidly: the specimen itself can't legitimately be accused of uncharity because in fact its enemies and the enemies of the Jingo are "invested in a failure." That havin’ been solidly established, there remains five or six hundred words in which to explain the aetiology as well as the diagnosis. What started, not without a certain dignity, as pretended Superstition or Enthusiasm has degenerated into quack psychoanalysis over the course of four microparagraphs.

To save time, the specimen asserts, without detectable evidence, that what we have here is specifically an instinct-based investment in a failure: doves and donkies have not actually worked all the details and contingencies out with EXCEL® and written their bottom line up with POWERPOINT®, they -- we -- evidently just "know in our hearts" after the B. Goldwater manner of 1964 that failure in Peaceful Freedumbia will be good for them/US. [1]

Eventually it does get around to presentin’ some evidence, though, Mr. Bones, and for a wonder, evidence that we do not happen to know: [2]

One can rediscover that worldview by watching the Academy Award winning 1974 documentary about Vietnam, "Hearts & Minds." This film, by director Peter Davis and producer Bert Schneider, stands as a useful, explicit demarcation for an American political culture that broke in half during the 1960s and '70s. Toward the film's end, Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, casts off the preceding generation when he tells the camera that Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all "lied." He adds: "We weren't on the wrong side" in Vietnam. "We are the wrong side." By this, the movie makes clear, is meant in part that America had become dangerously enamored with a culture rooted in martial values. The problem isn't the military, which is inevitable. The problem is militarism. "Hearts & Minds" makes associations between the war and a gung-ho high-school football team in Niles, Ohio; uniformed marching bands; young boys (Scouts) in formation in parades, and displays of tiny flag-waving. The father of an aviator killed in Vietnam is allowed to speak at length in admiration of his son's heroism in war and of military values generally. The viewer is clearly expected to be galvanized by this scene into a new truth: this father is sad, foolish and wrong.

Any product of Hollywood may be safely referred to Instinct rather than Intellect, so one need not argue with the WSJ señorito about its implicit classification. But it should be asked whether its own reactions to the cinema are to count as acts of understandin’ rather than states of sentiment, and if so, why. It used the word "demarcation," which I take to be defining a border between those with an innate gust for geistige Militärismus and others who goldwaterise that militarism is a bad thing. The Henninger specimen is not to be allowed to insinuate that itself, and its Rupert Presslord Murdoch, and its V.D.H. Blimp , and all its other ideobuddies, distinguished or base-and-vile, are thinkin’ when they admire "military values generally," whereas the dupes of Daniel Ellsberg are merely wallowing in hormones when they cringe or laugh at MVG. The specimen should not be allowed to sneak that claim by unless it offers grounds, and here no foundational attempt of any sort is made. No more is to be granted on its present showin’ than that some folks happen to like the Leni Riefenstahler kind of spectacle and others detest it -- and some get bored with it rapidly, since uniforms do tend towards a certain uniformity. [3]

The specimen does not get as far as offerin’ any proper criticism of the film that he mentions, he only sets it up as a touchstone: Spiritual Militarists will naturally despise it, and so (presumably) will Archie Bunker. Master Danny H. is not formally authorised to speak for Mr. Bunker, however. If it forgets that point itself, nevertheless outsiders should remember.

The Jingo specimen cannot speak at first hand for the fort mauvais chunk of "an American political culture that broke in half" either. Because you and I, Mr. Bones, have not seen the movie, and even more because we thought Mr. Ellsberg a jerk in 1971 and think him one still in 2008, we have no business disputing the tastes of spiritually militarist young whippersnappers.[4] Still, the film was obtruded only exempli gratiâ, and it is plain enough what the specimen wants exemplified.

It is also more than a bit odd. Contrary to our previous speculation, Rear-Col. Blimp of AEI and GOP and Hoover does not stand alone, he actually has a chela! Who’ ’a thunk it?

Like the devil, the disciple is in serious danger of mind rot from the company it keeps. In particular, it imitates Blimp in abusin’ its enemies rather than expoundin’ the beauties of its own system. "Still a free country," no doubt, but it is a pity that neogentry with such weird and wonderful views as Blimp and Henninger should spend so much time and energy keyboardin’ the merest bilge for Party and Ideology, horsefeathers any malignant hack could churn out.

The closest the Jingo specimen can come to accentuatin’ the positive is to complain that the apologists for Jihád Fiendishness ought to adopt that plan:

Rather than leaping on "failure," as with Basra, why can't one of these candidates or party leaders find examples of nobility, accomplishment or martial courage in what the troops have done in Iraq?

The specimen itself probably does not often praise nobility, accomplishment and courage deployed towards policy ends that it happens to disapprove of. (Its views are not quite that weird and wonderful, though this maneuvre, too, is conceptually possible.) For that matter, I doubt it often decries, say "baseness, mismanagement and cowardice," when exhibited by its own Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology. J. Sidney McCain to some extent behaves like that, but D. Henninger is no Mugwump to follow in those footsteps.

Perhaps there exists a remote elective affinity between its and its Blimp's geistige Militärismus and the Mugwumpery or Courageous Profilism of JSM, who egregiously wants to star as noble and brave in a melodrama of his own concoction. Yet any such connection is not only remote but also potential rather than actual, at least for the moment.

The specimen can certainly not be accused of goin’ into raptures over J. Sidney:

John McCain? Hard to say if he's seen "Hearts & Minds." If not, he should. Yes, the economy may be the top voting issue this fall. An historic line, however, runs from South Vietnam to Baghdad. The debate about that heritage will define for a generation the elements of American power that lie behind this country's commitments. Let's get to it.

If the WSJ specimen is not just lettin’ its hormones have their say, if that sentence is taken as serious political commentary that one might usefully venture to dispute, I’d guess it mostly unreality-based, an inhistoric boo-boo, so to britspeak. Doubtless there exist a certain number of Holy Homelanders who are still distressed about how the McNamara-Kissinger countersurgency of 1963-1975 ended, but it is impossible to believe that they matter a great deal after thirty-three years and the evaporation of everything that Anticommunism was against. Even the present specimen is not such a total doctriaire ding-a-ling as to fancy that anybody wants to reopen that front -- that is, to re-invasionize the Vietnam of Century XXI. (Unless the indigs of Indochina should suddenly convert to Global Tourism and/or Jihád Religionism, that is -- developments which seem a bit unlikely to this observer.)

Sufferers from ERHDS, "embassy roof helicopter depression syndrome," have had a whole generation to slit their throats in despair that their Uncle Sam should ever lose a round, so it is unlikely that there is much additional damage to be feared on their account. The past remains as immutable as ever, unfortunately, although Rovean postreality-basin’ attempt the feat. The neocomradely Niederdümmung and wombscholarship can make sure that what happened in 1963-1975 gets hushed up as well as possible so as not to make the sweet puppies of Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh feel bad about what happened unnecessarily.

But why go on about it? With or without ERHDS, J. Sidney McCain is not goin’ta pick up a whole lot of new support in conjunction with the March 2003 aggression, no matter what happens in the boondocks of Peaceful Freedumbia between now and Election Day. The Henninger specimen may think JSM would be in like Flynn if every voter were required to sit through a screenin’ of "Hearts and Minds." I think that's silly, but it isn't important in any case, since the thing will certainly not happen.

BGKB. Happy days.


_____
[1] The specimen may well assume in its heart ("goldwaterise") that a zero-sum game is in progress between the Aggression Faction and America’s party. Alternatively, it may assume that Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid and Mizz Hillary and B. Hussein O’Bama (&c. &c.) assume that -- provided, of course, that such an assumption can itself be instinctual rather than rational.


[2] We are in good company, Mr. Bones, at least if the WSJ specimen is a good guesser: "Barack Obama, one guesses, has not seen "Hearts & Minds."


[3] This is by no means a new discrimen rerum. The impression that one gets from historians that everybody before about W. E. Gladstone was a rabid fan of organised violence is an illusion resulting from the circumstance that only information about the upper reaches of the Second and First Estates has survived. Thug-friendly señoritos are to be controverted if they maintain that back in the good olde days literacy and jingoism showed a strong statistical correlation. More exactly, the señorito element are to be controverted if they attempt to deploy that genuine correlation to agitate for the proposition that jingoism is the considered opinion (or just taste, or correct conditioned reflex) of the whole human race.


[4] The Henninger specimen seems to have been manufactured in about 1950; the Baní Rupert do not supply an exact date. It will therefore have commenced its tertiary education (at Georgetown of the Jesuits) circa 1967, and been an underclassperson during the annus horribilis. That would be quite enough to freudianise with after the specimen's own example, were I inclined to such tomfoolery. In the real world, however, it may have been seventy-nine at age six or sixteen; conversely, the late Buckley Minor died in his eighty-third year as adolescent as ever.

"Señorito" and "whippersnapper" and the like are terms of art chez nous and often not chronologically warrantable.


[5] "Or how about Sieg des Willens?," jested Pilate.

"EVERYBODY has won, and all must have prizes" [1]

To begin with, Mr. Bones, who can doubt that Rear-Colonel Kagan and the American Ideological Enterprise and weekly standardisation in general have won?

(...) Throughout the operation, the Iraqi Government acted calmly and purposefully, the ISF reported for duty (the number of reported "defectors" etc. was trivial compared to the tens of thousands of forces that fought loyally), moved and fought as directed, mostly with minimal Coalition support. (...) This operation offers a number of extremely positive signs about the willingness of the Iraqi Government to address a fundamental challenge that has been plaguing it (and us) since 2004, the ability of the ISF to absorb country-wide efforts to light up the Shia community, and the increasingly overt malign role Iran is playing in the conflict. It can provide us with a critical opportunity to increase our influence in Shia Iraq and help encourage the development of local political movements there as we have done in Sunni areas. Most of all, it is the most overt and decisive recent engagement between our Iraqi allies and their Iranian foes. We should have no doubt about where our interests lie.

Fat Freddy and Mizz Kimberly are comparatively restrained (as well they might be), which allows them to look a little better than certain lunatic doves and donkeys whom we will get to in a moment. Yet you can see, Mr. Bones, how AEI is beginnin’ to rot Master Kagan's brain and reduce him to the level of rear-colonels V. D. H. Blimp and R. M. G. Spook. The great merit of his original scheme for the Ever-Victorious Surge of ’07™ was, as Freddy said himself, that it tried to limit the bushogenic quagmire in a way that might make winnin’ (in some sense intelligible outside the Party of Grant) possible. Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology were to be at "war" with six million of their neo-Iraqi subjects, not twenty million. Only the Arabophone Sunni TwentyPercenters were actually practicing the black arts of muqáwama at that time. Indeed, prior to last week, this continued to be the fundamental correlation of forces, with both poor M. al-Málikí and the Rev. Señorito as-Sadr rather on the sidelines watching as Boy George and the extremist GOP duked it out with Al Kayduh. Al K. was in difficulties, no doubt about it, many of them resulting from the nifty Bribe-a-Tribe™ scheme. [2] But then suddenly . . . !

Now the Six-Twentieths Solution has been tossed out the window like an amblongus pie. Rear-Colonel F. Kagan proposes "to light up the Shia community" (huh?) and "increase [AEI-GOP-DOD] influence in Shia Iraq" and generally go for a grand slam, relyin’ especially on those components of the Ever-Victorious Surge of ’07™ that were somebody else's idea in the first place.

If fat Freddy wore a uniform, he'd be accused of "mission creep." Perhaps one may accuse him of it anyway, and add that it combines oddly with his not bein’ altogether certain who won the Second Muqtadan War. Beyond that, we may pass over his piffle about the evil Qommies in silence as mere Big Party banality.

Also at Wingnut City, success and victory are acclaimed by Big Party neocomrade E. Morrissey in a passage that may interest the historians of Princess Posterity some day:

When the Iraqi government finally took the long-expected action to establish control of Basra after the British pullback left it in the hands of militias and gangsters, suddenly the media declared that the country had reached the brink of collapse. They highlighted stories of defections from the Iraqi military and opined that the surge had failed. Moqtada al-Sadr would finally achieve his goal of controlling the South and would expose the Baghdad government as a house of cards. Guess which side just sued for peace? (...) Sadr now wants to disavow anyone with a gun. The Mahdis, which found themselves on the short end of the stick, have just watched their Fearless Leader surrender — again — and this time leaving them twisting in the wind. That isn’t the action of a victor. Perhaps our media would like to explain that in the context of their clueless reporting so far.

Compared to Rear-Colonel Kagan, Mr. Ed is only an e-guttersnipe. He wastes a lot of that ellipsis bein’ at "war" against the MSM fiends rather than the jihád fiends. But his sub-McCarthyite attitude is characteristic of many clowns at W.C. and Rio Limbaugh, after all, so future annalists ought to be aware of it. He wrote that guff after Sadr Tertius’ supposed "surrender," notice.

_____
[1]

What I was going to say, said the Dodo in an offended tone, was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race. What IS a Caucus-race? said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything. Why, said the Dodo, the best way to explain it is to do it. (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.) First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (the exact shape doesn't matter, it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no One, two, three, and away, but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out The race is over! and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, But who has won? This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, EVERYBODY has won, and all must have prizes. But who is to give the prizes? quite a chorus of voices asked. Why, SHE, of course, said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, Prizes! Prizes! Alice had no idea what to do . . . .

[2] Bribe-a-Tribe™ was not part of fat Freddy's own plans at any point, although it fit in with them nicely. Furthermore, as regards military and secret state police matters proper, Dr. Gen. Petrolaeus of Princeton, who probably knows more about the violence profession technically than Freddy, has never been a completely orthodox Kaganite.

The Watan united can never be defeated!

For one brief shining moment there, right after poor M. al-Málikí suddenly unleashed his inner Hannibal, the gentry at Mu’ámara Junction were almost tolerable. Naturally that state of affairs was too good to last, and one finds Ms. Lynx and Mister Badger and Doctor Iconoclastes reopened for ideobusiness after a brief discombobulation by the Sadrist strike:

... whether you think it was Washington that pulled the trigger on this, or whether you think it was Tehran, from both points of view a key irritant was the fact that Sadr was forming agreements with Sunni entities. Washington has always favored the crypto-separatist [0] Kurdish parties in the north, and the "federalist" Dawa-SupremeCouncil pair in the south, and the clear implication has always been is that Washington doesn't like the Iraqi-nationalist leanings of Sadr and those he has been dealing with on the Sunni side (including or course the demand for American withdrawal). What this Kuwaiti writer says is that those cross-sect moves by Sadr were a major irritant to Tehran too. This doesn't really help us figure out which side pulled the trigger, or whether it was a jointly-agreed thing to do, but it does help underline the importance of the cross-sect nationalist character of Sadrist thinking, as something displeasing to both Tehran and to Washington--which is the most important depending on where you sit.

For a little comic relief before proceeding ever upwards along the Sunninterní Path, here’s one customer of the mu’ámariyya who understands these things a little differently, a little even-more-so than the factionalists of MJ:

Kevin said... Now you are getting on the right track. This is an Iranian operation, probably Quds Force operatives are embedded into Iraqi Army units. It surprised me how blind Americans were to Iraq. I read over and over on the left leaning sites who Cheney and Bush are all-powerful and ordered this attack against Sadr. The sad truth is that the US lost Iraq long ago to Iran and now it's the Persians calling the shots. Remember the President of Iran just made a visit there a few weeks ago. He would have approved the attack on that occasion.

(( Could Master Kevin be some sort of Sinn Fein artist, a left-over Fenian or Provo? Or is it/he only a false name to throw everybody else off that "right track," so as to have it all for oneself? Ah, well, that " doesn't really help us figure out," does it, Mr. Bones? And now, enough of ‘Kevin’! ))


Characteristically mu’ámarí is the total neglect or oblivion of the possibility that either poor M. al-Málikí, or the Rev. Señorito as-Sadr, or devilish "rogue elements" affiliated to the one or the other, might have pulled the trigger. Those are silly ideas unacceptable in gentry circles, where if it wasnt't the Bushies, it was the Qommies, and if it wasn't the Qommies, it must have been the Bushies. Though they might (a-HA!) have been workin’ together, the Bushies and the Qommies, that is.

But keep your eye on the ball, Mr. Bones, or rather on The Key: "Sadr was forming agreements with Sunni entities ... the Iraqi-nationalist leanings of Sadr and those he has been dealing with on the Sunni side (including or course the demand for American withdrawal)." "Entities" is a bit vague and misty, but one sees why the ideologue lapses into that rather than frankly admit how many pieces her Humpty-Dumpty has gone smash into. "This Kuwaiti writer" attaches great importance to cloakroom wheeling and dealing at the Council of Deputies:

Sadr became stronger and stronger, and formed individual agreements with "enemy" blocs including the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni) and the Dialogue Front led by Saleh al-Mutlak. And most seriously of all, the discussions that joined the Sadrists with their old enemy Iyad Allawi.

With entities like that, who needs friends or enemies?

"Paper will stand anything," and video monitors are not bad either. M. Sarmad at-Tá’í [2] of Kuwait City considers that the Renegade Firebrand Cleric™ has been moving from strength to strength of late. An odd judgment, but of course he’s entitled to his opinion -- it’s still a free country, innit? M. at-Tá’í has even odder notions about the Trigger Question, although I can't quite make out whether Dr. al-‘Alláwí pulled the trigger or simply was the trigger with which the Firebrand Renegade Cleric™ shot himself, accidentally or suicidally.

The MJ ideogentry distance themselves a little from M. at-Tá’í: he "raised the whole attack-on-Sadr question in a somewhat different light from what we're used to reading (including here)." On the other hand, the following is summatorialized from the Free Kuwait journalist as if the customer is expected to accept it:

After the Feb 2006 bombing of the golden dome temple in Samarra, in the dark and ugly period of organized sectarian killings, the other Shiite factions encouraged Sadr to take the lead, providing him with "political cover" and with practical items like police cars for travelling around Baghdad during the curfews, and so on. Sadr emerged stronger organizationally, and expected that his organization would be given greater importance politically too. This led to the series of political moves, eventually pulling his organization out of the so-called United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), which was supposed to represent the united Shiite front. And in this they were followed by the Fadhila party.

Both police cars and parties of Islamic virtue are undeniably to be classified as entities, Mr. Bones. You certainly can’t deny that! (It looks like the former Iraq is overrun with the goddamn entity things.)

M. at-Tá’í's, or Ms. Lynx's, "political cover" I am not so sure about, in that a thing must exist in order to be a proper "entity." (Isn't that right?) What was it that the Clerical Firebrand Renegade™ needed to conceal and that the schizomaniac fiends of the Supreme Council and Da‘wa were, for a season, willing to help him cover up? Only that Master Muqtadae is soft on Sunnis? Possibly M. at-Tá’í is not as foolish as association with the vicarious chauvinism of Mu’ámara Junction makes one suspect. He may even understand that the heretics can not count for sixty percent of the population of ex-Iraq in any political sense unless they hang together. However the only "political cover" in sight in that direction would be the Gogolian overcoat of ‘Alí Cardinal as-Sístání (bhsp).

Still, M. at-Tá’í cannot be really good at political analysis if he supposes the Renegade Clerical Firebrand™ to have grown in strength by withdrawing from the Twelver Caucus in order to join that mere nonentity of a Patriot Opposition that overthrew poor M. al-Málikí, and forced the extremist Republican Party to withdraw all its troops, and saved the beloved watan from a partition worse than death, and all the rest of those splendid things that somehow never actually happened. (Thanks to the Konstitution of N. Feldman and Z. Khalílzád, the former Iraq is overrun by Bagehot-worthy nonentities of the "dignified" sort as well as by police cruisers and Virtutite political hacks.) [3]

_____
Some of the internal contradictions [4] of the chauvinist MJ gentry are revealed by the basic facts of the moment, quite apart from elaborate conspiratorialist elucidations of them. In particular, the TwentyPercenters and the Sunní International (plus our Ms. Lynx, and Mr. Badger, and Dr. Iconoclastes) are not going to lift a finger to assist the Sadr Tendency in any useful way. Perhaps they will shed a crocodile tear or two when it's all over and Godzilla wins, but that is about it. However they will presumably never admit that they could not have lifted a finger even if they had wanted to, nor will they frankly acknowledge that the former Iraq has been what Max Weber called "routinized," reduced to the same sort of normalcy as obtains in Gen. Mubárak's Egypt and the rest of the Greater Levant, Lebanon and the Islamic Republic to some extent excepted. "The Watan united can never be defeated!" will continue to resound from their covens and conventicles as if nothing much had happened, and in a sense, nothing much will have happened.

If there ever was a window of opportunity opened by the Big Management Party aggression of March 2003, it will now be slammed shut and firmly locked, and all the furniture in the parlour looks not much the worse for a brief exposure to wind and weather from outdoors. [5]

But God knows best. Happy days.

_____
[0] Crypto-?


[1] If anybody has a used Reichstag fire for sale, she might want to get in touch with the firm of Lynx, Badger, Iconoclastes S.A.


[2] What kind of Christian name is SRMD, for Pete's sake? And how does he vocalize it? Not a hard question!


[3] Poor M. al-Málikí's inner Hannibal has escaped from its cage, no doubt about it, but naturally few, if any, of its doings are at all likely to be Khalílzád-konstitutional. Fortunately nobody worth mentioning in Peaceful Freedumbia, native or invasive, gives a hoot about Rulalaw.


[4] Or mere "difficulties" if Marxish gives offense.


[5] The Invasion-of-the-Month Club will not have triumphed altogether. The evil Qommies and the God Party of Lebanon and the Zeal Party of Gaza will remain. Even the Fatáh of East Palestine might be added to the list of usual suspects, perhaps.

The true correlation of forces is impossible to assess when one's mind is full of bias and cant, whether it be the "Freedom means peace!" cant or "The Watan united can never be defeated!" cant.