In an essay on Rudyard Kipling, the much quoted George Orwell made a common sensical point that bears repeating. The seed of his essay was an edition of Kipling's poem that bore a preface by T.S. Eliot. Eliot, apparently, went to some lengths to dispel the notion that Kipling was a fascist. Orwell thinks Eliot point doesn't deserve the energy he puts into it. Kipling, he writes, was a typical jingoist of the expansive imperialist period. He believed in the racial superiority of Anglo Saxons; he believed in the goodness of the Indian Civil Service; but he did not believe in power for power's sake. He justified the ICS, and adumbrated Anglo-Saxon superiority, in terms of work and responsibility. He had, in other words, wholly other standards than the fascists. I will quote Orwell at length here:

"And yet the 'Fascist' charge has to be answered, because the first clue
to any understanding of Kipling, morally or politically, is the fact that
he was NOT a Fascist. He was further from being one than the most humane
or the most 'progressive' person is able to be nowadays. An interesting
instance of the way in which quotations are parroted to and fro without
any attempt to look up their context or discover their meaning is the
line from 'Recessional', 'Lesser breeds without the Law'. This line is
always good for a snigger in pansy-left circles. It is assumed as a
matter of course that the 'lesser breeds' are 'natives', and a mental
picture is called up of some pukka sahib in a pith helmet kicking a
coolie. In its context the sense of the line is almost the exact opposite
of this. The phrase 'lesser breeds' refers almost certainly to the
Germans, and especially the pan-German writers, who are 'without the Law'
in the sense of being lawless, not in the sense of being powerless. The
whole poem, conventionally thought of as an orgy of boasting, is a
denunciation of power politics, British as well as German. Two stanzas
are worth quoting (I am quoting this as politics, not as poetry):


If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law--
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word--
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

Much of Kipling's phraseology is taken from the Bible, and no doubt in
the second stanza he had in mind the text from Psalm CXXVII: 'Except the
lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it; except the Lord
keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.' It is not a text that
makes much impression on the post-Hitler mind. No one, in our time,
believes in any sanction greater than military power; no one believes
that it is possible to overcome force except by greater force. There is
no 'Law', there is only power. I am not saying that that is a true
belief, merely that it is the belief which all modern men do actually
hold. Those who pretend otherwise are either intellectual cowards, or
power-worshippers under a thin disguise, or have simply not caught up
with the age they are living in. Kipling's outlook is prefascist. He
still believes that pride comes before a fall and that the gods punish
HUBRIS. He does not foresee the tank, the bombing plane, the radio and
the secret police, or their psychological results."


We've been thinking of Orwell's point because we've been thinking, oh so hard, about Paul Berman. We've already mentioned one review of Berman's book in the Nation. "Terror and Liberalism" is apparently designed to match concept to a particular slogan of the last two years: Islamofascist. This hybrid has, as the semantacists say, an empty extension. Like the phrase son of a bitch, it isn't an insult that merits scientific work. However, since it gained currency among such grave pundits as Christopher Hitchens, and since it has circulated among the company of those who listen, in revanchist ecstasy, to the dulcet tones of Rush Limbaugh, Berman apparently felt it was time to lasso Islamofascist for all of world history.

Berman is an intellectual historian. Intellectual historians are professionally prone to view history too� intellectually, as if what is really happening out there is a battle of ideas. Battles of ideas rarely happen even in philosophy departments, where battles often turn out to be more about getting ahead than, say, sacrificing one's career on the altar of Wittgenstein's philosophy of language. This is not to "reduce" history to material forces - rather, it is to humanize ideas, which arise in heads connected to bodies, are thought out on paper, computer screens, and voice, and stimulate to action in extra-ideational contexts. The idea of salvation, for instance, has passed like a wind through the Roman Empire, through the courts of the Frank, through the auto-de-fe of fifteenth century Spain, through the anti-slavery movement in England, and through the streets of Lubbock Texas two days ago; in each case, it stimulated to action, and in each case, the action it stimulated was determined, as well, by other circumstances.

In the 1920s, fascists would tell you they were fascists as readily as libertarians will tell you they are libertarian today. Outside of self-professed fascists, there were fellow travelers. Since 1945, however, for obvious reasons, the number of self-professed fascists has diminished. So the hunt is on for the fellow travelers. In the 20s and 30s, some of the fellow travelers were Catholic. There was one insurmountable objection to fascism, however, for these people: fascism was militantly secular.

How did such a political philosophy play out in the Middle East? It played out, as one would expect, as secularism. The attraction of Fascism for Arab nationalists was obvious: the fascists opposed the French and the English. The French and the English were the proprietors of large swathes of the Middle East; hence the alliance between fascists and Middle Eastern nationalists. But these allies of Hitler and Mussolini did not go down with that duo after WWII. They retained a certain bizarre credit in the eyes of the Brits and the Americans. Why? Because they were sterling anti-communists. After WWII, as the Brits and the French lost their sphere of influence in the Middle East, they - and the Americans - played a game with the politics of the region in which anti-communism mixed with the desire to retain the dibs on oil. The big question, then, was nationalizing oil. The paradigmn case is that of Iran. Mossadeq was given the boot in an American arranged coup, the chief mover of which was General Fazollah Zahedi. When the history of this unfortunate incident was reported, at length, by the NYT in 2000, General Zahedi was described as "retired". Ah, your average NYT reader can't bear too much reality -- that seems to be the editorial decision making process here. He actually was arrested by the British in WWII and sent into exile, because of his German sympathies.

The reconstruction of fascist sympathizers in the Middle East didn't imply that Americans or Brits were themselves fascist sympathizers. They were following the path laid down by their perceptions of national interest. The game was premised on aggrandizing Western interest. That meant supporting old allies of fascism in Iraq and Iran, which they did without hesitation or protest from Western intellectuals, and supporting anti-fascism, in the guise of versions of Islamic theocracy, against regimes like Nassar's. Paul Berman's discovery of the writings of one of Nassar's enemies, Sayyed Qutb, is the foundation of his comparison of fundamentalist Islam with the totalitarianism of fascism and the totalitarianism of Communism; alas, in the report on Qutb he published in the NYT Magazine, there is hardly a word about what was happening in Egypt at the time of Qutb's imprisonment.

We'll continue with a general post about Berman's "theory." But before we get to the theory, read Marc Ericson's articles on the history of fascism in the Middle East published in the Asia Times. Here's a juicy quote from one of the articles:


"And yet another player fond of playing all sides against the middle had entered the game prior to Farouk's ouster: In 1951, the CIA's Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of president Teddy, who in 1953 would organize the overthrow of elected Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh and install Reza Pahlavi as Shah) opened secret negotiations with Nasser. Agreement was soon reached that the US, post-coup, would assist in building up Egypt's intelligence and security forces - in the obvious manner, by reinforcing Nasser's existing Germans with additional, "more capable", ones. For that, CIA head Allen Dulles turned to Reinhard Gehlen, one-time head of eastern front German military intelligence and by the early 1950s in charge of developing a new German foreign intelligence service. Gehlen hired the best man he knew for the job - former SS colonel Otto Skorzeny, who at the end of the war had organized the infamous ODESSA network to facilitate the escape of high-ranking Nazis to Latin America (mainly Peron's Argentina) and Egypt. With Skorzeny now on the job of assisting Nasser, Egypt became a safe haven for Nazi war criminals galore. The CIA officer in charge of the Egypt assistance program was Miles Copeland, soon a Nasser intimate."

Ericson is just a journalist. As a journalist, he knows an idea without a context is a flower doomed to bloom unseen. He is not an intellectual of Berman's caliber, who apparently believes that the plant is all bloom. Berman, for instance, never points out, in his article on Qutb, was that he was, after the US-Nassar rift, on our side. Or at least he was appropriated to our side:

"And then things got truly complicated and messy. Having played a large role in Nasser's power grab, the Muslim Brotherhood, after the 1949 assassination of Hassan al-Banna by government agents [see part 1] under new leadership and (since 1951) under the radical ideological guidance of Sayyid Qutb, demanded its due - imposition of Sharia (Islamic religious) law. When Nasser demurred, he became a Brotherhood assassination target, but with CIA and the German mercenaries' help he prevailed. In February 1954, the Brotherhood was banned. An October 1954 assassination attempt failed. Four thousand brothers were arrested, six were executed, and thousands fled to Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon.

Within short order, things got more tangled still: As Nasser in his brewing fight with Britain and France over control of the Suez Canal turned to the Soviet Union for assistance and arms purchases, the CIA approached and began collaboration with the Brotherhood against their ex-ally, the now pro-Soviet Nasser."

In an ironic turn, Bush's Iraq adventure is beginning to seem like a second breath for an Islamicist movement. We've been here before. In fact, we keep arriving here because demented people are at the wheel, who have substituted their convictions for any acquaintance with the culture and history of the places in which they have decided to implement their convictions.

Bollettino

LI is always behind the curve. For instance, get this: we don't see the difference between the weapons of mass destruction and the weapons of good destruction. We are clueless, here. It is a musical distinction recognizable by any Pentagon nitwit, and every editorialist on the Washington Post board, but LI -- we are just stumped. For instance, take Qatar. The Campaign against the Arms Trade has pointed out that Qatar is rather small, really. There are 724,000 people who proudly call themselves Qatarinis - or Qatari, or something like that. Now those folks need to protect their property and chattel just like anybody else. But they go to some lengths to make sure that no thief in the night makes off with their stuff. "According to US government figures, Qatar spent $700 million on arms between 1994 and 1997 and $1.2 billion from 1998 to 2001 - all from Western Europe." Now, 700 million dollars buys a lot of Uzis; but Uzis are so passe, nowadays.

Things get complicated -- especially when you are a good country, and you are buying good weaponry, from good countries like Britain and the US. Here's a bit more about Qatar's desire to have the nationwide equivalent of mace in their purse:

"In 1996 the Qatar and UK governments signed an agreement on a defence equipment package. The same year, Qatar signed a �500 million with BAe for ships, aircraft and armoured vehicles. The then Defence Secretary, Michael Portillo, said he had offered a comprehensive Gulf security proposal to Qatar. In 1997 negotiations continued concerning an $833 million 'revolving credit package', whereby Qatar is offered credit and pays it off in crude oil. On the 11th September, 2002, Michael Portillo was appointed to the board of BAe Systems as a non-executive director. He was appointed to improve their relations with the Ministry of Defence.

In 2000, it was discovered that payments of over �100 million were being held in Jersey-based accounts, called the Havana and Yaheeb trusts, for the benefit of the Qatar Foreign Secretary, Sheik Hamad bin Jaber al-Thani, the Emir's uncle. They were being used to purchase real estate and hotels. BAe were associated with at least one payment in to these accounts, for �7 million. In June of this year Jersey's attorney-general announced he was dropping the investigation. According to the Observer newspaper, "...the Foreign Office met Jersey authorities to 'explain' the damage the investigation was having on relations. They are said to have pointed out the risk of losing trade and the importance of Qatar as a strategic ally in the 'war against terrorism' " (9/6/02). It is thought to be the case that payments from European arm's manufacturers also reached these accounts."

Well, call it what you will, but a tank per person, a Black Hawk helicopter for every neighborhood, and well equipped cruisers for the Qatari navy is a situation that looks to me like it could spread mass destruction. Not that I'm complaining -- I understand that this is the financial equivalent of that old time medical recipe, bleeding. Bleeding supposedly allowed the patient, who had somehow concentrated too much of a particular humor, to get rid of it. Weapons sales allow countries with too much oil revenue, and a perhaps restive population, to bleed a couple hundred million, or billion, or whatever, into generous Western economies. In return, the West sometimes bombs a randomly selected third world country and then -- well, it helps to rebuild it! Christian compassion can go no futher than that.

Ah, the Weapons of Good Mass Destruction -- even the very Reverend Tony Blair, with his lamb like conscience, has been a willing salesmen of these things. Foreign Policy commented on Blair's 'peace' visit to India last year. Like Jesus Christ and Gandhi, Blair's moral idols (and lets face it, he's bucking for Gospel status himself, our Tony!), he was spreading sweetness and light and 1.6 billion dollars worth of military aircraft to his Indian brethren:

"When British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited India in January, ostensibly it was to calm troubled waters. But according to Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes, Mr. Blair also was pushing a $1.43 billion deal for India to purchase 66 British-made Hawk fighter-bombers. The Hawk deal is part of a drive by British arms manufacturers to make a killing from the crisis. London is also selling the Indians Jaguar bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons, in addition to peddling tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft guns, small arms, and ammunition."

Now, LI is so naive that the selling of a Jaguar bomber capable of delivering nuclear weapons to a nuclear power seems ... oh, drat, it just doesn't seem like stopping the spread of these nasty WMD.

Which is why we'd never make it in D.C. Expertise in these matters requires a keen semantic sense. It is much like rocket science. That's why we are doing this blog, instead of smoking cigars with the big boys in some of the Defense Department's off hourse clubs.

Bollettino

Bagmen

Coups are expensive. As Jonathan Kwitney pointed out years ago, private enterprise and public governments often find pleasing compromises that allow them to go dutch on overturning third world governments and installing those pleasing puppets that age so badly in their baroque, disco palaces. It is a win win proposition - in the old days, you got staunch anti-communists, elected again and again by a wonderfully cooperative electorate, and you got sweet deals being cut that divvied up, in the most rational way, the natural resources to which the third world country was, by some mistake of providence, heir to.


One wonders how the INC in Iraq is being financed. We are suspicious that an exile Iraqi billionaire currently being held in an extradition trial in London, Nadhmi Auchi, might have some answers. The Observer has a wrap around bio of Auchi that reveals some interesting things. The man's main company is hq-ed in Luxemburg, natch: GenMed. We are being killed, in this century, by bland corporate acronyms. Auchi was connected, in some mysterious way, with the former meat machine tyrant of a Middle Eastern country -- guess which one. But Auchi claims, of course, that said Meat Machine turned against him and killed his brothers. However, Auchi, who turned up in Britain in the eighties, did not let family tragedy get in the way of peculative interests. He cut deals for Elf, and for other Euro petro companies, to get oil from Iraq -- and for himself he collected your average multi million dollar kickback. GenMed's main business, supposedly, is hospitality. In fact, Auchi's company just opened a swinging hot spot in Amman, Jordan. Auchi himself keeps to London. In his office hangs a painting of the House of Commons signed by such well wishers as Tony Blair. Blair's cabinet has a soft spot for the exiled Iraqi -- in fact, one sub minister was caught advising him on extradition matters vis a vis the French charge against him still on the docket there.

The Observer article doesn't touch on his connections with one Henry J. Leir. If you touch on that connection, you can get sued for libel, as Le Soir in Belgium found out. There is an article of mysterious provenance floating on the web none the less, in which it is claimed that Auchi was connected as an arms dealer with Leir. Leir, apparently, is golden: a major player in channeling enriched uranium to Israel -- again, for you libel lawyers out there, this is all wink wink. Leir endowed a chair at Tufts university in -- oh, spirit of the age -- peace, and seems to be an establishment figure in America -- but in Europe he has a different reputation. Denis Robert und Ernest Backes, two journalists, have written a book, Revelations, about the Leir/Auchi connection. Here's a short bio of Leir

Der Amerikaner Leir, 1900 als Heinrich Hans Leipziger in Oberschlesien (Beuthen, heute Bythom) geboren, 1933 nach Luxemburg, 1939 in die USA emigriert und nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg im Gefolge der Luxemburger Regierung nach Luxemburg zur�ckgekehrt, soll seit Ende des zweiten Weltkriegs entscheidenden Einfluss auf Politik und Wirtschaft des Gro�herzogtums genommen und dessen Integration in die Weltwirtschaft und Finanzwelt massgeblich gef�rdert haben. Henri J. Leir, der vor drei Jahren in New York starb, leitete jahrzehntelang von Luxemburg, New York und Lausanne aus seine vielf�ltigen Gesch�fte (Rohstoffe, Metalle, Waffen, Finanzen), die ihn schon in den 50er Jahren zu einem der reichsten M�nner der Welt machten. In enger Abstimmung mit dem politischen Establishment nutzte er Luxemburg als Basis und Sprungbrett f�r seine Gesch�fte. Es gelang ihm, das Land zu einem der verl�sslichsten europ�ischen Partner der USA zu machen. Die N�he sowohl zur republikanischen Partei in den USA wie auch zur Luxemburger Regierung und zum gro�herzoglichen Hof konnte er f�r sich und seine weitverzweigten Gesch�fte erfolgreich nutzen."

"The American Leir, born IN 1900 as Heinrich Hans Leipziger in Upper Schleswig, Beuthen, today Bythom, went to Luxemburg in 1933, emigrated to the US in 1939, and after the second world war returned with the returning Luxemburg government; since the end of the second world war he exerted a decisive influence on the politics and finances of the duchy. He facilitated its entry and integration into World business and Finance. Henry J. Leir, who died three years ago in New York, headed many companies for decades from New York, Luxemborg and Lausanne, in many areas (raw materials, metalls, weapons, finance), and by the fifties he was already one of the world's richest men. In close cooperation with the political establishment he used Luxemburg as a basis and diving board for his businesses. He succeeded in making the country one of the most trustworthy of America's partners. His nearness to the Republican party as to the Government of Luxemburg and the court of the duke he employed to the glory and success of his divergent businesses. "

A man who, one would assume, would shrink with horror from partnering with a minion of Saddam. Yet Auchi and Leir seemed to hit it off. Perhaps this is because Leir, and Luxemborg banks, have a long history of supping with various devils. Roberts' book reveals more than the machinations of Auchi in the present. Ernst Backes was a central figure, apparently, in the setting up of an international clearing house in Luxemborg. He was involved, for instance, in the transfer of seven million dollars from a private American bank to the national bank of Algeria in 1980, which was the basis for the arms for hostages deal cemented between Reagan and Iran.

So... our guess is that a lot of black money is flowing, at the moment, towards Iraq. And that Luxemburg is once again the happy middle man turning black to white. Let freedom ring.

Bollettino

Al Jazeera is reporting that American troops are not allowing the employees of Iraq's oil ministry back on the site. While the Americans are encouraging Iraqis to return to work elsewhere -- from looted library to looted sandal shop -- the oil ministry, which was carefully untargeted by American smart missiles, is apparently one of those redoubts that the Bush administration is not going to give up just yet.

The Financial Times also has an extensive report. There are several curious figures hanging about the Ministry, all connected to the INC paramilitaries:


"The former minister is barred from entering, as are his deputies. A man in a green suit, standing outside the barbed wire, introduced himself as Fellah al-Khawaja and said he represented the Co-ordinating Committee for the Oil Ministry, which few of the employees had heard of.

It draws its authority from a self-declared local government led by Mohamed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, a recently returned exile who says he is now the effective mayor of Baghdad.

According to Faris Nouri, a ministry section chief, the committee has issued a list of who should be allowed into the ministry by US troops guarding the building. Yesterday it was announced that Mr Zubaidi's deputy, former general Jawdat al-Obeidi, would lead Iraq's delegation to the next meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

But when asked who was giving the orders at the ministry, most employees pointed to a portly man standing in the lobby, who looked to be in his 50s but declined to give his name."

Ah, the coup in the making! The unusual ardor, evidenced by the Pentagon, for democracy in the Middle East in the pre-War period, is rapidly cooling into the accustomed shapes of a puppet government. Tradition re-asserts itself.

Bollettino

Reason no. 500 for an accelerated pull out.

Gideon Rose, the managing editor of Foreign Affairs, ruminates about the duties of empire in Slate. The point he makes is that the US lacks the mechanism for imperial rule in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. This is such an excellent point that it should have been in the forefront of anti-war politics. Allowing Bush to announce how the invasion of Iraq was going to be managed and how much it was going to cost in his own good time crippled the anti-warriors.

However, Rose is not an antiwarrior. He is a belligeranti deluxe. His idea, which has surely been nursed in many a defense department funded forum, is that we need to spend the money, and create the agencies, to be a real empire:

"This simply will not do. Bungling the peace in Afghanistan would be a tragedy; bungling the peace in Iraq would be a catastrophe. So unless the Bush administration changes its mind and decides to hand off responsibility to the United Nations and the rest of the international community, it will have to do much of the work of postwar nation-building itself. Interestingly, one result of going it alone might be to force the United States to finally develop the institutions required to run what is now a de facto empire (albeit one designed to be temporary and managed on behalf of the dominions rather than the metropolis)."

Notice, especially -- stare hard at -- rub eyes and stare again at - the dishonest parenthetical remark that closes this pathetic piece of special pleading. On the one hand, let's be hard nosed empire builders; on the other hand, lets do it all for our adorable child-states. Self interest, which is the glorified principle of all capitalism, is suddenly shunted into the background, as in the hush of our good intentions we 'elect' such as Smilin' Jay Garner to head our democratic middle eastern property. Meanwhile, of course, the term democratic is hollowed out even more, feeding a more and more coercive mindset back into the homecountry. When democratic becomes, by definition, what the US does - because we are democratic, natch -- it loses all connection with representative government. The solution to the peace in Iraq is simple. Iraq isn't a dominion. It should elect its own, it should govern itself, it should not be a place where American troops become guardians of the dreams of all the Roses and Wolfowitzes.

This is how you make music in D.C. ears right now:

"As Rachel Bronson of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote last fall, Washington needs to develop "a greater appreciation for the fact that intervention entails not simply war-fighting, but a continuum of force ranging from conventional warfare to local law enforcement." That means creating plenty of units in unsexy job categories such as civil affairs and military police�the sort of folk we could use to run Baghdad today. (If George Steinbrenner were in Rumsfeld's position, he might just buy or trade for the Italian Carabinieri.)

Taking interventions seriously would mean changes outside the Pentagon as well. As Andrew Bacevich of Boston University notes, "imperial governance is a politico-military function," so the State Department has to be a critical player in the game. That means the absurdly low funding of State should be increased, as should policy integration between State and Defense both at home and in the field. "The empire may need proconsuls," Bacevich says, "but it will need them to take a perspective that looks beyond military concerns." The foreign service will need to cultivate old-fashioned political officers who know their way around a country's hinterlands and people as well as its capital and elites. And the White House will have to get used to the lengthy, costly, and often thankless engagement with the world that nation-building necessarily involves."

The pseudo-scientific lingo of political science, especially in that rarified pie slice of it called foreign policy, is always a skin bracer. The white man's burden is rhetorically clouded, here, for one audience only: the American citizen. The imperial sleight of hand works only if the citizen picks up the burden, while the policy wonks and CEOs pick the bones of whatever country we happen to crush. On the day after reading of the award of a 600 million dollar contract to Bechtel, Rose's article does exude a certain smell. Empire is not, for the bumpkins out there, about asserting American power and interest. It isn't about lucrative contracts for a diverse array of hungry American firms. It isn't about oil for the oilman, and saber rattling for the saber manufacturer. No, it is about "thankless engagement." With a sigh, we continue on, never expecting thanks from those Shiites we are forced to spank. And even as we let a thousand INC paramilitaries.bloom, we have to remember that Iraqis, like Palestinians, are notoriously ungrateful for the things we do for them, and have to sometimes be sternly fired upon by soldiers, especially if they start crowding together.



Meanwhile, Chalabi's INC becomes more unbelievable every day. Is this some old CIA training film, circa Teheran, circa 1954, or what? First the paramilitary group. Then the cries of Chalabi, Chalabi -- ringing out from people who one can reasonably assume had never heard of Chalabi before being informed by some friendly US military attaches. Then the advance, in uniform, armed, on Baghdad, and the comic opera seizure of power -- a sort of Mussolini meets the Three Stooges kind of move. Then the takeover of certain of Saddam's houses, such as Uday's hunting club, in which Chalabi gave a press conference today, blessed again by American soldiers, all in the wealthiest suburbs. The overwhelming impression is of Ba'athist pageantry, usurped by a man who has learned how to use the word democratic to cover the complexion of what is, in truth, run of the mill third world fascism. Now, one should never bet too much against third world fascism, especially when it is blessed by US advisors. From Mobutu to Suharto, it has had a pretty good run. But Iraq is not Guatamala in 1956.

Chalabi knows that without the US military, his group would be in danger of meeting the fate accorded to less guarded sheiks and imams the US has parachuted into the hinterlands -- the rush of a crowd, gunfire, daggers drawn, etc. So in his first Baghdad press conference, after modestly disclaiming his own role in the interim government, he proposed that the Americans soon let Iraq rule itself. However, he coyly left out a date for the withdrawal of American troops. He is obviously counting on said troops hanging around a long, long time. He wants the troops to root out Baathists, disarm the Iraqi army, and dismantle the structure of terror. Of course, in a disarmed Iraq, only the INC paramilitaries would have arms. A nice deal, all the way around.

Surely it is time for one of the ex-left wing hawks to write a scathing article about the ninnies in the press who are expressing doubts about Chalabi, hero of the suffering people of Iraq! We look forward to Hitchens barking up something like this in his throwaway column in the Mirror.

Bollettino

It's Mornin' in Baghdad

Two papers confirm the claims of Baghdad's new mayor. The NYT reports that the INC in Mosul is receiving American military help, and refers to Baghdad's new mayor as a done deal. The London Times article ledes with an (unconsciously?) ironic statement:

"BAGHDAD was given its first lesson in democracy yesterday when self-appointed leaders emerged from nowhere to fill the power vacuum left by Saddam Hussein�s regime.
Amid the confusion caused by the absence of any authority � other than the US military � Iraqi citizens discovered that they had a governor, a mayor and even a religious leader to look after affairs. Mohammad Mohsen Zubaidi, an exiled political leader, announced that he was now running Bahgdad as the city�s governor, elected by a mysterious council of �religious and community leaders."

What reader in democracy is the London Times using? Machiavelli's The Prince? What seems to be happening is that the Pentagon is boosting the legitimacy of the INC paramilitaries where it can. In Iraq's open moment, the performative is up for grabs. You remember the performative, boys and girls, don't ya? JL Austin, the Oxford philosopher, created the term to designate those speech acts for which the truth condition is their own pronunciation in the appropriate context. For instance, saying I do at a wedding ceremony, or christening a ship, means that it is true that the speaker is married, and it is true that the ship has a certain name.

The contexts in Iraq have been blown to hell or looted, or are floating around the relics market, along with cuneiform tablets and golden figurines from Ur. We'll see if Mohammad Mohnsen Zubaidi has picked up on the one context left standing -- American military might.

Bollettino

Apparently, American troops are better at protecting the furnishings of Saddam's palaces than such trifling landmarks as the Baghdad Museum and library. Lolling about the place, General Franks --entering Baghdad under heavy guard -- is confident, as is his commander in chief, that the War is over.

As is the press. The main question asked by Slate's Chris Suellentrop right now is when are we going to roast those Syrians. That's fairly representative of media opinion.

Well, in the face of such unanimity, and given the nature of the unanimous, we have a hard time buying the pitch.

The occupation of Iraq differs from that of Germany or Japan, and is like that of Afghanistan, in that the other side disappeared. It's evanescence was taken, in Afghanistan, as surrender -- and for all practical purposes, the US definitely achieved its goal in Afghanistan. It denied a haven to Al qaeda. It overturned Alqy's protectors.

In Iraq, the forces of Saddam are through. But the War still rumbles, in Mosul, in Baghdad, in Basra. These are weeks of shifting. We don't think the War part 2 is necessary. We think it is preventable. We think the factional struggles that racked Northern Iraq don't have to be replicated on a national scale with quite that fury. But we also think that the longer the Americans display their insensibility to their situation in Iraq, as long as they sign contracts that seemingly are premised on the assumption of months, if not years, of occupation, we creep ever closer to a pot shot war. One in which Americans casualties will be higher than the pot shot war in Afghanistan, and Iraqi casualties, as seems to be the destiny of wars waged in Iraq, will be much higher still. There's probably some calculable multiple, now, of American to Iraqi deaths.

This story from Mosul is ominous enough not to have received much attention in the American press:

"Whatever the cause, the two shootings have killed 17 Iraqis and wounded 39, according to Dr. Ayad Ramadhani, director of the city's general hospital, who said the toll from Tuesday's shooting rose overnight to 13 from 10.

American officials said they believed that seven people died in the incident on Tuesday, but they had no figures for Wednesday's deaths.

All of the shootings occurred outside the governor's office in downtown Mosul, which was occupied by American troops on Tuesday. Iraqi witnesses said that in Wednesday's incident, Iraqi policemen who had surrounded looters in a nearby bank building had fired shots in the air to disperse a crowd. The Americans, thinking they were under fire, started shooting, they said. Among the wounded were the two police officers who fired the warning shots, a 12-year-old boy and 61-year-old man.

Maj. Steve Katz, a special operations civil affairs officer, said that despite the shooting, most Iraqis were still welcoming American forces here."

The smiley face that is being painted relentlessly across this occupation is treacherous. Welcomes, after all, presage stays. Making oneself at home. Sampling the home cooking. Electing the new "mayor" of Baghdad, and following him with a couple of jeep loads of Chalabi bullyboys, armed and clothed by the Pentagon.

In the meantime, where is Smilin' Jay's prefector in Northern Iraq? Isn't General "Loose" Bruce Moore supposed to be in charge up there? Although Loose Bruce is a hard man to keep tabs on. In a recent Glaswegian spreadsheet about the Military-Industrial complex about to run Iraq from the banks of the Potomac , Loose rated merely a mention. No company ties, no nothing. But if they keep mowing down Iraqis for unprofessional displays of impolitic fervor, eventually Loose Bruce will have to say something.