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Further hints Bush is giving up on Iraqi “democracy”
According to Canadian essayist David Warren, when Bush was in Iraq last week he met briefly with four key members the Iraqi Governing Council and removed a key obstacle to Iraqization. The leader of the Shi’ites had wanted a full democratic election, which others on the Council had opposed because it would mean a “mosque” election, with Shi’ite Imams telling their followers how to vote en masse. Bush, according to Warren (though he doesn’t give his sources), said in effect, “Whatever,” thus breaking the logjam while acknowledging that Iraqi “democracy” would not be anything like Western-style representative government.
But if Bush is in fact giving up on democracy in Iraq (as I hopefully suggested myself in a recent article), why does he keep giving these messianic speeches about America’s intention to impose democracy on every Moslem country? Is it cockiness? A need to mobilize his conservative base? A need for moral cover for his realpolitik? A clever psychological tactic to throw Moslem national leaders off-balance and get them to do what he wants? Or just the fact that, as an American, the only way he knows how to articulate his desires and values is in terms of “freedom” and “democracy”? Your guess is as good as mine. Email entry |