“We will help the Iraqi people to find the benefits and assume the duties of self-government. The form of those institutions will arise from Iraq’s own culture and its own choices” GW Bush, MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, 26 March 2003

Iraqis have civil war, not peace, polity, power, petrol, rule of law/fair trial or security, but their votes will soon be counted, representatives chosen and apologists like Bill Kristol and ‘serious’ commentators of the cretinous ilk of Aaronovitch and Phillips will tell us how America and themselves were right all along, and can we start frying other MidEast fish like Iran now please?

Election is just a word. Much like empire. Or bullshit. Like the endgoal of a “freedom for Iraq” (and not counting how many civilians die to get there), the 30 January elections were a symbol of democracy and no more, satisfying the criteria in the most basic fashion. Security ratcheted up to massive levels (attacks persisted), borders closed, the booths at places like Ramadi or Fallujah ignored because of insurgi-fears. No campaigning as such (vote for who you know). No actual politics or politicians, just power blocs. (These are just some aspects of the problem of developing the kind of society Washington deems approvable. Another is that there is a fast-diminishing intelligentsia there, as they have been frightened away by occupiers or insurgents. Wierdly, hairdressers are also suffering from extremists). Substance is irrelevant when it’s all about passing self-declared milestones of progress.

The Shia should get hold of the reins of power – majority will speaking and all that. Yet fears of a bloc forming with Iran are fallacious, unless Al-Zarqawi and co are able to improve on their downing of a UK transport plane and take out the whole of the moderate Shia set led by Sistani. Their United Iraq Alliance, which has said it wants Sunni involvement, could do a lot to ensure measured progress – eliminating the reasons both for insurgency and a continued US presence.

And what about the small matter of the 100 Orders whacked off by L. Paul Bremer III, the former free market pontiff of Iraq? The very concept of an occupying power appointing an administrator (or jockey armed with a cutlass and your youngest child, as in this case) to issue legally binding diktats on a vast range of civil matters in the absence of a sovereign national government is illegal under international law. For example, this: “The highest individual and corporate income tax rates for 2004 and subsequent years shall not exceed 15 percent.” (Order no. 37) would seem to overlap with the current brave new world of the Iraq Democracy Project and the consistent political commitment to leaving a country they and others invaded for at least one reason that has since been disproved (it’s not just about oil).

The ghoulish terrorist John Negroponte has, of course, taken over from L. Paul Bremer 307, and we should be in no doubt as to the significance of the recent elections in his dollar-glazed eyes. As he commented to the BBC News Toad on 21 January: “And let me stress another point here, that it is not the fact of turnout alone that should be considered the standard of which this election is judged. It’s going to be a major milestone in the political development of this country. Transitioning, as it were, from an appointed to an elected government...”
Yes, these elections are for western audiences more than they are for the ‘Iraqi people’ (patented by the Foreign Office, UK).

All of which serves General Bush’s Grand Plan, which is to decidedly not finish off the job they started. There is increasingly louder noise about coalition withdrawals and troop reductions (so we western wets can justly move on from talking about a war that never should have happened to a coalition that doesn’t meet its obligations). But, of course, to issue any sort of deadline for withdrawal would be playing into the hands of the evildoers. So best build massive, rather permanent looking, military bases in Baghdad and make the US Embassy in Iraq their biggest in the world, in terms of staff numbers.

At least some of the franchise building has been satisfactorily carried out – London and Washington’s multi-faceted advisory role should ensure lucrative hydrocarbons contracts and ongoing work in all the other main sectors, simultaneously barring French and Russian involvement. The US and UK wouldn’t want to give the impression of continuity with Saddam’s regime. Heavens to Betsy. No.

A sustained Western military presence looks certain for the next five years. And that’s because of the little Shiites next door. In the timeframe of neocon imperialism it has been obvious to some that just as the towers were likely to lead to a campaign to oust the Baathist they propped up for decades, so the invasion would suit wider regional needs regarding Iran. See, the non-Israeli Middle East is one big project to be completed, like a careers adviser on a long drawn-out campaign to win round disenthusiasts to the benefits of a career in marketing. Syria, though recalcitrant, is small fry compared with the Islamic republic and besides an unfettered IDF can sort Asad out. Iraq, like Afghanistan and Caspian Sea/central Asian states, will come to be as much a strategic base for acupuncture on the Persian hypochondriac.

Cull’s fetish for nihilism means it looks forward to the time when the White House decides its done pussyfooting around and throws its weight behind overt ops for regime change/weapons destruction/brainwashing. Iranian youth, feeling the boon of an education boom since the 79 revolution, may not be particularly pro-clerical, but it is even more polarised against American influence, and any US directive towards the usual illegitimate, illegal ends should see a ferocious, unified response.