DEMOCRACY CUTTING AND RUNNING IN IRAQ….It looks like the reports this morning about Iraq are now confirmed: the UN agrees that elections can’t be held by June 30, but at the same time we are continuing to insist on handing over power by then anyway. Putting off the transfer is just not up for discussion.
I really, really don’t know what to think of this. At this point the administration of Iraq by the CPA is such a disaster that it may well be pointless to continue the charade, but the obviously political nature of the whole thing just leaves me cold. All along the June 30 date has been the administration’s only core requirement, the only thing they’ve refused to compromise on, and it’s so obviously timed to be safely before the elections in November that it’s hard to believe that the entire postwar plan was ever anything other than a purely political exercise.
Yeah, I know Bush’s supporters don’t see it that way. I’m just not sure what excuse they give themselves to explain his way too obvious reluctance to really follow through on democracy promotion in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Given what’s happening on the ground in both places, how can they continue to believe that this was ever an important goal of the administration?
