BAIT AND SWITCH IN IRAQ

The president has tried various themes and slogans
on why we are in Iraq. For a long time it was
"democracy." That was repeated over and over in
his speeches. But it wouldn't sell in Iraq. There is
no Arabic word for democracy. Of the 22 Arab
countries, none is or ever has been, a functioning
democracy.

It's sure not about to happen in Iraq! The Shia
majority there want an Islamic state. The Sunni
Arab minority refuses to participate in a Shia
dominated government allied with Iran. Sunnis
in al-Maliki's cabinet are boycotting it, and Sunnis
in parliament are threatening to quit altogether.

To distract our attention from the disintegrating
government, Bush has discovered a new reason why
we are in Iraq. It's al Qaeda! He repeated it 27 times
in one speech -- as many times as he used to say
"freedom." It's a great theme for him, because we'll
have to stay there as long as they do, and they'll stay,
of course, as long as we do. Can you say "permanent
bases?" Remember, every day we're in Iraq, al Qaeda
worldwide gets stronger. Osama loves it!

Although 90% of our casualties come from the
insurgency, which is not dependent on AIQ, our
military reports (and news stories about them) now
simply refer to all enemies in Iraq as "al Qaeda." In
reality, al Qaeda in Iraq (AIQ) makes up maybe 5%
of the fighting forces there. So that's one more of
the long string of dishonesty that has permeated
our misadventure there.

By the way: whatever happened to the benchmarks?
Peter Galbraith, in a powerful article in The New York
Review of Books entitled "Iraq: The Way to Go," lists
the essential measures regarding oil revenue sharing,
provincial elections, constitutional revision, reversing
de-Baathification, and fair distribution of reconstruction
funds. Some minor and fairly meaningless ones have
passed, but Galbraith says of these essentials: "Iraq's
government has not met one of the benchmarks, and
with the exception of the revenue-sharing law, most
are unlikely to happen. But even if they were all
enacted, it would not help. Provincial elections will
make Iraq less governable while the process of
constitutional revision could break the country apart."

Galbraith goes on to explain how and why the
political war in Iraq is lost. I covered some of that
in the last blog. So we can go on pretending we are
doing something worthwhile, but the further we keep
going, the behinder we get.

Anytime Mr. Bush really wants to get rid of AIQ, all
he has to do is join up with Iran in that worthy
endeavor! Iran hates al Qaeda (and the Taliban)
much more than we do, even. And they can get
Syria's help as well. But that would make sense, for
a change! Don't hold your breath.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net