It’s suddenly looking very much like the hoped-for democratic, elected Iraqi government is going to be superceded by military rule. This excerpt from ABC News Online gives clear evidence of a shift in power:

WEAK-MINDED POLITICIANS
“The spokesman for the Iraqi forces engaged alongside US troops in enforcing the Baghdad security plan, Brigadier General Qassim Atta, says many other districts already have or will have some form of barrier.

Brigadier General Atta says some of these might be walls, while others may be ditches, sand-bags or fences. He has accused the media of inflating the size of the five-metre-tall concrete barricade that US troops are erecting around Adhamiyah.

“The Adhamiyah security barrier has been exaggerated by the media and we anticipated there would be some reactions by weak-minded people,” he said, referring to criticism of the plan by many Iraqi politicians (and Al Maliki by direct inference).

He says Iraqi units involved in planning and building walls are under Mr Maliki’s command and has implied the Prime Minister reacted to false reports. “He said he would not accept a 12 metre high security barrier,” Brig Gen Atta said. Asked about the wall on Sunday, Mr Maliki said: “I am opposed to the building of the wall and its construction is going to stop”.

But Brig Gen Atta says nothing has changed. “We have begun construction of these barriers in many Baghdad areas… We will continue to construct security barriers in Adhamiyah neighbourhood,” he said.”

Brig. General Atta seems to be more in charge than his government. This may be the real shift in direction that our forces are taking. Bush certainly would be unwilling to tell us that the experiment in democracy has failed (though most of us know it has anyway) and that Iraq is being converted to a military dictatorship as the only viable means of stabilizing it.

If anything makes sense, this does. One general at the top of the heap will do whatever it takes to quell the insurgency. We would no longer be putting our soldiers on trial for doing what his soldiers can do with impunity. At the same time, the Iraqi military will be perpetually dependent on us to provide them with arms, thus ensuring our enduring presence in Iraq and the continuation of our bases there.

Brilliant! Our biggest problem in Iraq has been dealing with all the screwed-up politics. This would remove all political interference.

I hope I’m right. Right Truth was asking us to come up with ideas. This might be it.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 3:23 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.