Just Dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In

The United States invaded Iraq and deposed its leader, who was later captured and executed. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was a non-ideological, military-police state whose Ba'athist government combined bits of pan-Arabism with Iraqi Nationalism with pseudosocialism with market kleptocracy with Gulf Oil State. Following the ouster of Saddam and his government, the United States estabilished a proconsular government. It was the position of the United States that the Ba'ath Party was the functional equivalent of the Nazi Party, and so began the process of de-Ba'athification. Of course, the Ba'ath Party was not all that similiar to the Nazi Party, functionally or otherwise. It was, for one thing, around for longer. To advance in the military, or to pursue a professional career, or to find work in the oil industry--or for a thousand other entirely mundane reasons--you'd have to join the Ba'ath Party. Which makes the more accurate (and more obvious) equation between the Ba'ath Party in Iraq and the Communist Party in the USSR. Can you imagine, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the purging of Party Members from civil, military, and professional society? It would have been impossible.

Fortunately, no American with sufficient influence to stem this decision was troubled by perspective, and the United States purged military, civil and professional Iraq of Ba'ath Party members. Of course, under Ba'ath Party dictatorship, there were no opposition parties, no political organizations, no independent labor unions. The only substantial units of social organization outside of the official party were familiail, religious, and ethnic. Clan. Tribe. Sect. Naturally, then, when the government collapsed and political organization became necessary in order to acquire influence in the "new Iraq," organization occured not ideologically but ethnoreligiously. Naturally, since the United States imposed a system of proportional representation (believing, obscenely absurdly, that proportional government would abnegate potential sectarian divisiveness--a fair shake for all, and all that), the majority ethnic group took over. Naturally, the former ruling minority looked askance at such a development. Naturally, they rebelled against their occupiers and a government percieved at once as in bed with the occupying United States and in bed with the hated neighbor, Iran, against whom the Sunni minority had waged an 8-year war at the cost of a million Iraq lives.

The United States, limitless political savant that we are, simply began demanding that the government reach "accommodation." That it reach "consensus." That it "form a unity government." That it "solve" its "political crisis." Each of these is a euphemism. What do they actually mean?

What they mean is that the United States would now like the newly empowered Shi'ite majority to voluntarily devolve some of its own political power to the very Sunni Arabs who formerly ruled Iraq. You may remember them as the ones we once tried to purge from life in Iraq. Not to compromise on some particular piece of legislation, but to willingly, openly, and freely undercut the advantage of its own numerical advantage in order to quiet the agitation of restive parties. What could possibly impede such a request? Perhaps that Nouri al-Maliki is constrained by more hard-line Shia factions within his own governing bloc. Perhaps that even were that not the case, Nouri al-Maliki is a Shi'ite politican, and like any politician anywhere at any time, his first interest is in acquiring and preserving power for those who share his politics. I'm sure we can think of some more reasons if only we put on our thinking caps.

Now Carl Levin, a Democrat, has become the first major politician to publicly propose an idea formerly floated by right-wing war supporters. A coup! My goodness, it's almost as if there's a certain bipartisan foreign policy consensus, grounded in American exceptionalism, committed to imperial aims, that renders any claims that Democrats constitute an opposition ridiculous on their face. The idea here is that somewhere in Iraq there is a Pharaoh who will unite the Upper and Lower Kingdoms. He would speak a language of national unity that would appeal to American domestic necessity. He would be staunchly opposed to Iranian influence. He would be willing in certain circumstances to act as an American proxy in the region. He would be able to train and equip a military that could maintain domestic order and police Iraq's borders. He would be Saddam Hussein, if we hadn't lynched him already. Whoops. Guess we really are screwed, Carl.