The Color Purple

They say politics makes strange bedfellows. No shi'ite. The Purple Fingered Faction of the GOP thus gave a thumbs up (no pun intended) to Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani's slate of candidates, which has garnered about two thirds of the votes tallied thus far. Let's see...the GOP apparently endorses Islamic theocracy in Iraq, as well as close ties to Iran...

Wonder how long that's going to last...

Plenty of follow up reports on the "election" suggest rosy forecasts of voter turnout turned out to be...rosy (for example, best estimates of expatriate votes show a turnout of about 25%). That'll probably be enough for certain Rethuglicans to loudly assert that it was water soluble food coloring, not indelible ink, that stained their fingers and told the world that fundamentalist Islam is right up their alley (actually, come to think of it...).

But there's also the reality that the "election" is for an interim legislative body, which will choose president and prime minister, then try to put together a working constitution (which can be vetoed by a two thirds majority vote in any three provinces--see Triangle, Sunni), then there will be a regular election for a regular assembly...if this was a car, it'd have square wheels, would only run downhill--in reverse--get less gas mileage than one of Schwarzneggar's Humvees, and fall apart after sputtering to a halt.

There's also the matter of an ongoing war.

This is a prime example of the bizarre "kumbaya" elements to Bush, and, by extension, the GOP. I still wish they'd used hammers instead of food coloring on their fingers, but to get back to my point: You can have all the trappings of democracy you want--elections every week, raucous debate over everything from parliamentry procedure to criminal law, grand pronouncements of written compacts with the populace, etc. etc. ad nauseum...but it won't amount to much if the halls of government are accessable only via armored car and Green Zone pass. To wax all starry-eyed about the grand experiment in the eastern outposts of Araby without acknowledging that a full fledged war is going on, featuring well organized insurgents (and, I might add, well equipped insurgents thanks to the idiotic policies of Bush's daddy--no, not Poppy, Rummy) reaches such a height of foolishness that it would starve even the most acclimated brains of life sustaining oxygen. You know, I realize that plenty, if not most people, think political theory is just a steaming load of horseshit (hey, some political science students think so too, and not just the neo-con ones), but Iraq will go a LONG way in demonstrating that the social contract first requires a degree of civil order that's presently lacking--thanks to the US invasion. Civil order will remain elusive UNTIL an accomodation of some sort is reached with the insurgency. The US Military won't be able to kill them all. The US Military presence all but guarantees that any "government" constructed by Bush will have about as much authority as the average student government at a high school. Which further means that in the end, power will come from those who know the terrain, have a solid organization, and possess weapons.

The first of the previous points rules out the US--sure, we've got plenty of firepower and can hold any garrison for as long as we want (minus the inevitable casualties resulting from the need to resupply), but we don't "know" the terrain, which means a bit more than being able to read a topographic map. Those who understand the society will eventually take power, and the degree to which this is done by violence is ultimately a function of our own military presence--which is a little too late to undo at this point.

Well, whatever happens, Bush's simplistic musings--and the idiotic, knee-jerk, lockstep marching from his naiive believers--make downfeathers look like lead ingots in comparison. I've said before that history will judge him harshly. It'll be interesting to see how rapidly history catches up with this administration...