Comments on: Breaking the circuit

By: Robin Green

Robin Green — Sun, 18 Apr 2004 03:19:11 +0000

It’s a strange world in which 8% is considered “respectable” as set against 43% for “none of the above”.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 12:26:26 +0000

A commentator on my personal blog points to a poll where Chalabhi got 0.2 per cent. YMMV.

By: mitch

mitch — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 09:42:34 +0000

[Chalabi] has zero credibility in Iraq Iraq.net is conducting a net-poll for Iraqi president right now. The candidates are ten members of the Iraqi Governing Council, including Chalabi, and “none of the above”. None-of-the-above has a massive lead, with 43% of the vote, but of the listed candidates, Chalabi is coming third, with a respectable 8%; the most popular, Pachachi, is only marginally ahead at 11%. (Second place is Bahr al-Ulloum, a Shia cleric who we don’t hear much about, for some reason.)

By: a different chris

a different chris — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 21:01:53 +0000

>It might not be feasible to remove him from the Governing Council, Why the hell not? Chalabhi’s our puppet, not the other way around. Without the US, he has the same number of divisions as the Pope. I’d dispatch a few Marines to collar him and drag his butt to Jordan. Basically a nice public 21st century tarring and feathering. Who besides his immediate family would not be happy? The publicity on it would be wonderful. The Middle East might pause for a second and wonder if maybe we are capable of getting a clue every once in a while. And I don’t see any downside. I can’t name a single thing he brings to the table that somebody else couldn’t do just as well, and that even includes toadying to Bushie/Neo-Con power. Hell Instapundit doesn’t seem to have anything really important to do, and he takes bootlicking to a new level almost daily. Give him a whack at it. I’ll chip in for airfare.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 20:23:22 +0000

Robert, this David Ignatius column (via Matthew Yglesias at TAPPED) describes the confrontation with Sadr as a "war of choice" and discusses it in terms of a decision to attack Sadr's militia. He argues that it wasn't smart to do this while fighting in Falluja. This paragraph from today's WaPo: Sadr's black-clad Shiite militiamen, known as the Mahdi Army, have clashed with U.S.-led occupation forces in Baghdad and across southern Iraq during the past two weeks, since authorities closed the 30-year-old cleric's weekly newspaper, arrested one of his top aides and announced plans to put him on trial for allegedly ordering the killing of a rival Shiite religious leader in Najaf a year ago. indicates that it went past closing his newspaper; announcing that you're going to put someone on trial is initiating a confrontation. (Which may or may not have been the right thing to do.) Your insults toward John are unworthy of you. Nowhere does he say or imply that everything that happens in Iraq is the US's fault; he faults Bremer for specific decisions.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 20:12:13 +0000

What’s to be feared from another “downward spiral” if stabilization can come so quickly?

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 18:18:27 +0000

Maybe, but this was a newspaper that advocated violent rebellion against the occupation and the establishment of an Iran-style state. So Sadr may have been a tiny bit provacative himself. And maybe he had some sort of uprising in the works before then, given that he appears to have men under arms at the ready. And even if we grant that closing the paper was a provocation, was it the wrong thing to do? Should we have let him consolodate his armed power base and attack a nascent Iraqi democracy?

By: Andrew Boucher

Andrew Boucher — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 17:31:27 +0000

Maybe closing his newspaper was choosing to pick a fight?

By: Robert Lyman

Robert Lyman — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 17:24:37 +0000

John, Do you have an argument (or a link) to back up your claim that the US “picked a fight” with Sadr, and that this was the wrong decision? I really value a contrary viewpoint, but your belief that anything that happens in Iraq is 100% the US’s fault smacks of boneheaded reflexive anti-Americanism. But I could be wrong. Why not prove it?

By: rea

rea — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 16:39:40 +0000

“The US constitution, recall, had to be unanimously approved by all 13 states” Not what Article VII says: “The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.”

By: paul

paul — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 16:35:59 +0000

Terry: You wrote: “The US constitution, recall, had to be unanimously approved by all 13 states.” This is not correct. (You may have been misled by a quick reading of the second sentence in section VII). My copy reads (Section VII): The ratification of the conventions of nine states, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the states so ratifying the same. Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord… I don’t know that this has any implications for the strength of your argument. I fact check, you decide.

By: Rms

Rms — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 16:28:55 +0000

Terry: Ratification of the US constitution required the approval of 3/4 of the states – some of the original 13 states actually ratified the constitution well after it became the governing document. I don’t think that liberals necessarily dislike federalism. (I think that preserving the existing levels of Kurdish self-government is a good thing – why screw with what works?) If however, it is likely that the three main factions in Iraq vote as blocs, why should the Shia favor giving a new minority control after finally getting out from under the thumb of the Sunni. The key to federalism (and democracy) is balance. I cannot say whether current plans set this balance appropriately

By: des

des — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:23:59 +0000

Hey, Merkins! If you play your cards right, Tony Blair could conceivably be persuaded to part with the services of “Red” Ken Livingstone, currently mayor of London…

By: Doctor Memory

Doctor Memory — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:13:25 +0000

As much as the idea of sending Rudy Giuliani to Iraq has a certain…gonzo poetic brilliance to it, I have to call foul. Giuliani was an effective city manager, but only in a context where his personal abrasiveness and high-handed authoritarianism were made (barely) tolerable by the constraints of local law and the obvious absence of any credible leadership alternatives. I can’t see his act playing well in front of Sistani, Sadr, et al. Plus, the idea of Rudy with command authority over a military force is too terrifying to contemplate.

By: roger

roger — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:16:45 +0000

What can the American occupation give Iraq? If there is a small grain of truth in the neocon idea of making Iraq a democracy, then sending over another man who has spent his entire life in control and command structures, and never dealt with a union, a garbage collector, or a p.o.-ed city council member is probably not a good idea. Surely instead of Bremer and Powell types, we need someone with instincts honed by doing real political work in a real democracy—a former big city mayor, a governor, etc. The inability to understand where to compromise and where not to is the bread and butter of American political life. On the negative side, mayors and governors don’t often have to deal with military high command. It is obvious, over the last couple of weeks, that the military high command has gone into a very unhelpful revanchist mode—with statements about the killing of Sadr ranking high among the kinds of things that completely alienate Iraqis. So the mayoral or gubernatorial type has to have the arrogance to go nose to nose with the military. People like Rudy Giuliani, or Willy Brown, seem to me the more likely candidates for what the Americans can really do in Iraq. Somebody who understands that the garbage has to be picked up, rather than someone who views the Presidential Palace as a CEO perk.