February 22, 2005, Meet the new George Washington
On this, the 273rd natural birthday of our First President in time (though seventh in our hearts), let's put our hands together for Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leading candidate of the leading coalition of parties (winners of 51% of the vote) to become Iraq's next prime minister. Given that our old buddy (from the 2003 State of the Union address... how soon we forget) Ahmed Chalabi, decided to withdraw from the running for the position, this leaves Dr. al-Jaafari, the darling of Islamists (from their coalition partner, the Dala party), in the driver's seat for the Iraqi premiership.
This is, of course, why we got perhaps thousands of our countrymen (and tens of thousands of A-rabs) killed. We did so to introduce "free-dumb" and "d'mock-racy", which means Islamist extremists of the kind we supposedly launched the "War on Terror TM" to thwart are now standing ready to assume power in the Middle Eastern power vacuum (with the world's second largest reserve of... I won't even say it...) said vacuum we have now filled with... democratically elected Shiite Islamists, poised to restore their homey version of Sharia law (ladies, you got to put ink on your thumbs for a day... surely, that makes the loss of all semblance of your civil rights absolutely worth everything, right?) Grand Ayatollah Sistani will be happy... will we?
While it's unclear if Iraq will be an exact replica of its neighbor, blogger-arresting Iran, one might be a tad... disappointed. Certainly, our boy Iyad Allawi, a distant third-place behind the Islamists and the Kurds, ain't gonna get nothin' done. Al-Jaafari was part of the exile group (remember Ahmad?) that lobbied for and helped "organize" the invasion, and he worked with the interim government... but he IS the darling of the Islamists...
Who knows. Just, who knows. At least he's NOT Chalabi or Allawi, who, frankly, are tainted by association with the occupiers, who knows? Maybe this will work out. I give up. Maybe he will rise against the odds, and use his survival skills (which enabled him to get this far) for the benefit of his new nation (in which case, he will likely kick us the hell out, though Jaafari has suggested we not go so soon... pragmatic fellow...). Success by Jaafari will be measured much as most of the Bush consistuency will measure success: if regressive, reactionary religious law is enacted as the law of the land.
Maybe this IS someone with whom the Bush Administration can do business. Query (again) if any of this will... work out... and if so... for whom...