Après nous, le deluge?

It strikes me that things are getting bad very rapidly for the U.S. in the Gulf. We have political mayhem in Baghdad, with the IGC quasi-puppets flexing their political muscles, Lakhdar Brahimi’s mission in chaos, and no word at all from Sistani in the past two weeks. We have a once-again dangerously deteriorating situation in Najaf and Kufa. We have the Saudis running round like the Keystone cops at Khobar and, almost certainly, the world oil market about to get into a tizzy over that. We had the big bomb in Karachi…
It feels like it’s too late and too dire now to sit around enjoying the schadenfreudies.
I’ve been really disappointed with the U.N. in recent weeks, and most particularly with Lakhdar’s apparent willingness to let himself get rolled by Paul Bremer. But if the UN, with all its weight of international legitimacy, etc., can’t help to midwife a half-way acceptable transition in Iraq, who can? Sometimes I wonder if the folks calling the shots in Washington still really, deep-down, want the UN to fail.
“Apres nous, le deluge”? Is that what’s happening here?

10 thoughts on “Après nous, le deluge?”

  1. The Bushies went to the UN (that gets them points) and got the guy they wanted as Prime Minister (more points). A win-win.

  2. Personnaly, I think it’s all PR to make it look like the Iraqis are calling the shots, not the US, not the UN.
    This is such a mess but I think “they” (the ones behind the “throne”) want to make it look like somebody is taking charge.
    The only thing one is left with is conspiracy theories. Pick your conspiracy here!

  3. How do you figure win-win? Maybe the Bush administration “won” by getting the thug Allawi (who is likely to try to become the next Saddam). but they had to completely steamroll the UN to do it.
    In any case, as always, the Iraqis are the big losers.

  4. Mary Ann,
    I don’t think we need a conspiracy theory to explain any of the Bush administration’s actions with regard to Iraq. From the beginning and throughout the entire debacle my very strong sense has been that the explanation for pretty much everything is unbelievable ignorance and incompetence combined with an incredible stupidity stemming from a combination of blind ideology and extreme hubris (hubris already being an extreme, the Bush administration’s hubris in Iraq is completely off the charts).
    They were driven to undertake the deconstruction and transformation of Iraq by what you might call unenlightened self-interest. Unfortunately for them, they utterly refused to take into account, not just the history and nature of Iraq and Iraqis, but ordinary human nature.

  5. Before Bush launched his invasion of Iraq, my biggest fear was that, in doing do, he was unleashing forces in the Middle East that he did not understand and would not be able to control. My belief then was that the Middle East was a powder-keg and all it needed was a bumbling buffoon to come along and light the fuse.
    My fear is being realized now. I believe these “out-of-control” events are going to gain momentum in the days ahead and cause larger-scale calamities. While Bush is not responsible for all the pre-conditions in the Middle East that existed before his administration, he is the person responsible for setting all the current events into motion. I cannot imagine the outcomes will be good for the Middle East or the nation that got this ball rolling downhill.

  6. I think that the replacement of true diplomats and foreign service professionals by ideologues and stooges has been a big part of the problem. True professionals would have paid more attention to the military and intelligence experts who were counseling caution instead of macho foolhardiness.

  7. the explanation for pretty much everything is unbelievable ignorance and incompetence combined with an incredible stupidity stemming from a combination of blind ideology and extreme hubris (hubris already being an extreme, the Bush administration’s hubris in Iraq is completely off the charts).
    Shirin, I agree with your observation. It seems to me that, under the current administration, the US government has degenerated quickly into one which values ideology over competence, loyalty over knowledge and short-range gains over the long-term security of the nation. It pursues national objectives based on fantasy through intolerant and ignorant governance. I fear the damage done by this administration to other countries, to America’s interests abroad and to the nation itself may be beyond near-term repair.

  8. Mushinronsha, I must sadly agree with you. And though I am hoping for Kerry to replace Bush he is only marginally less bad, so I don’t have a lot of optimism for the future.

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