BuzzFlash presents P.M. Carpenter

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Iraq's #1 Problem(s)

by P.M. Carpenter

Watching the truth unfold is almost comical. No unwholesome weapons, no bug-filled canisters, no imminent threats, no grave or gathering anything except Saddam Hussein's pixilation. Turns out that while St. George the tyrant slayer was hornswoggling the world about Babylon's frightful menace, the swarthy Führer was writing novels.

The Bush administration got everything wrong. Whatever intelligence findings weren't dead wrong on arrival, the White House soon perverted. The inevitable cover-up, starting at the posterior position, now dominates the news, yet Bush II's prewar wantonness is obscuring the predictable tragedy of Iraq's postwar predicament.

The country is a political basket case, a condition guaranteed by its occupier's rush to war and hasty map redrawing. That things are bad in Iraq is a given; just how bad they'll yet become is the question.

What is now clear is that beyond their vague assurances of smiling and cheering liberated hordes, supposedly big-picture neocons had no clue about a postwar Iraq. When the scattered cheers turned to deadly ambushes, suicide bombings and a climbing American death toll, the administration cooked up plans to cut and run -- a.s.a.p. A messy Iraq was messing up the smooth road to reelection at home.

The scheme hatched by Bush II to thrust governing authority back into Iraqi hands before the invasion dust settles is a complex, multi-step caucus process that makes Iowa's look like a model of simplicity. The administration's plan has a lot of problems, the #1 problem being that the plan won't work.

For starters, it denies citizen participation in choosing a new government, and right off the bat the truly astute saw this as a snag for democracy. Among them is the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite, who really, really prefers direct elections and majority rule over convoluted caucuses and minority-rights protections.

Which creates an additional #1 problem. Sunni Arabs don't like the idea of seething Shiites dominating Iraq's new government -- not hard to comprehend when one considers that Sunnis have spent the better part of 20 years killing said Shiites.

Then there's the #1 problem of the Kurds. They'll likely get abused no matter what happens in whichever electoral process is chosen or forced, ensuring even greater #1 problems -- such as separatism -- shortly down the road. But at least that's another day.

Right now we face the #1 problem of a divided Iraqi Governing Council having to delay writing an interim constitution. That document would have opened the way for the administration-desired June 30 transfer of power, but other pressing #1 problems of council infighting over election procedures and a lack of voter rolls to even stage elections have somewhat overshadowed the first #1 problem.

Nevertheless, having already fled Iraq because of the then-#1 problem of uncontrolled violence, the United Nations plans to step in at Ayatollah Sistani's request to determine if hurried elections are indeed possible before a hurried transfer of power. The U.N.'s involvement is welcome, said Iraq's interior minister last week, assuming -- you guessed it -- the now-#1 problem of continuing violence doesn't preclude any possibility of elections to begin with.

Today's problems, however, should not depress. Just stay tuned. Tomorrow's will be much worse. In fostering a balkanized Iraq and thereby further destabilizing an already explosive Middle East, the Bush administration is proving its prewar incompetence and cluelessness were mere dress rehearsals for the postwar era.

Naturally, the administration will attempt to correct course by raising more money for its reelection campaign. Meanwhile, its more vocal supporters will concentrate on pointing fingers at everyone except those in charge. Their combined hope -- their only hope -- is that American democracy is as lame as that which they have unloaded on Iraq.