Grasping at straws.

Quite frankly, the capacity of some supposedly super-intelligent Americans to gleefully gobble anything from the Bush administration never ceases to amaze me.

As we are now hearing, the whole story of the Iraq war was to bring democracy to the Middle-East. Forget about the weapons of mass destruction and the links to Al Qaeda. We misunderstood what President Bush had been saying all along. Now, we have to go back to Bush's speeches anre re-read them. We shall be enlightened and see that his strategic goal had been to bring democracy to Iraq all along.

Hogwash!

Bush and his cronies might have mentioned democracy and freedom as advertising slogans, but they were never stated as primary objectives of the Iraq invasion. For a very simple reason: it is not the duty of the American state to deliver democracy to other countries. The duty of the American administration is to protect American citizens, not Iraqis.

I shall now refer you to the Presidential letter dated March 19th 2003, which informed Congress of Bush's decision to authorize the use of force on Iraq. Does it mention delivering democracy? Absolutely not. The two main reasons for invading Iraq are clearly stated: to put an end to the threat of weapons of mass destruction onto the USA and to act against Al Qaeda and the terrorists responsible for September 11th.

The fact is that these two reasons proved false later on and now Bush has to find other explanations for maintaining U.S. forces in Iraq. That's why his supporters are now grasping at straws to support the ridiculous idea that the primary objective of the war was to "deliver democracy to the Middle-East".

Hangover of sovereignty

Après plus de deux mois de palabres et de tergiversations, les élections irakiennes ont fini par produire un président, Jalal Talabani, et un premier ministre, Ibrahim Jaafari.

L'annonce de cet événement fut marquée par un signe précurseur que cet embryon de gouvernement restera à tout jamais divisé: Jalal Talabani fut incapable de se souvenir du nom du premier ministre.

Cette division et l'instabilité gouvernementale qui en résulte se traduira par l'incapacité à gouverner et à instaurer même un semblant d'ordre. Déjà, l'United Iraqi Alliance, qui a gagné les élections avec 48% des voix, a renoncé à demander un calendrier de retrait des troupes de la coalition, qui était pourtant l'un des principaux points de son programme. Même les Chiites, largement majoritaires, auront besoin des soldats américains pour se maintenir au pouvoir.

L'impuissance politique est, comme souvent, inévitable.