Bush helped oust Iraqi democracy in 2006

The traditional media is finally taking notice of the back-and-forth battle between Bush and US commanders over the future of democracy in Iraq.  It's turning out to be a straight-forward case of idealism versus realism.

This week, a US general in Diyala Province said that democracy is "not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future."  Just one day later, Bush fired back, insisting that the Iraqi people "now live in a democracy and not a dictatorship."

Do the Iraqis really live in a democracy?  The Bush Administration should know the answer to that, since last year they helped oust democratically-elected Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and replaced him with Nouri al-Maliki.  This morning, the New York Times Editorial Board touched on that point:

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has been catastrophic for Iraqever since he took over from the equally disastrous Ibrahim al-Jaafarimore than a year ago. America helped engineer Mr. Jaafari’s removal,only to get Mr. Maliki. That tells you something important aboutwhether this is more than a matter of personalities. Mr. Jaafari, as ithappens, was Iraq’s first democratically chosen leader under theAmerican-sponsored constitution.

...Mr. Maliki’s government has fashioned Iraqi security forcesinto an instrument of Shiite domination and revenge, trying to steerAmerican troops away from Shiite militia strongholds and leaving SunniArab civilians unprotected from sectarian terrorism.

So it looks like the 'democracy question' has already been answered.  What we need to do now is stop pretending Iraq is something that it is not -- a democracy -- and begin turning our attention to regional stability.  And it is difficult to argue that the US occupation has been a stabilizing force in the Middle East.

Comments

[Dave G.]

Maybe this was the plan all along. All these problems Maliki is supposed to solve were caused by the American CPA. Paul Bremmer enacted the de-Baathification Malaki is supposed to fix. By forbidding the anyone in the Baath party to hold a government job eveyone who knew anything about important things like electricity generation and water distribution was fired. Economic development that Malaki is supposed to provide
was first choked off by the CPA's selling off Iraqi nationally owned companies to muti-nationals. The multi-nationals did what they did best and laid off people. Naomi Klein feels this was the root of the insurgency.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6930.htm

The oil sharing plan the administration wants passed would give the American oil companies 70% of the oil revenues whereas they get 10% in other countries. So screw up the country with right-wing IMF policies, then ask a member of one of Iraq's sects to fix it it. This does not work so they put in another Sunni strongman, the Shiites revolt and the administration has its excuse to bomb Iran.