Charles Pierce on Iraq

I just love this guy's writing, available on Friday's on Eric Alterman's blog:

Correspondents’ Corner:

Name: Charles Pierce
Hometown: Newton: MA
Hey Doc --
Did I just hear Richard Perle on Nightline say that the biggest mistake we made in Iraq was not handing the country over to Ahmad Chalabi three years ago? Yes, and the biggest flaw in our national economy is that we haven't turned the Federal Reserve over to Ken Lay. Yes, and the biggest mistake I am likely to make in trying to understand this Festival of Fruitcakes is failing to have laid in enough mushrooms to get me through the State of the Union. To be fair, Perle tap-danced all around the name until Koppel finally brought it up, and then he said "Ahmad Chalabi" the way most people say, "trichinosis." Still, sweet storebought Jeebus.

The elections over there can put you in a tough spot. Of course, they've been oversold. Of course, they will be used as cheap ammunition for the various brave souls manning the guns at Fort Honorarium. Of course, they won't matter a damn as far as the violence is concerned; imagine the insurgent who says, well, we're going to stop killing these people because they have a national assembly now. This is Cakewalk Theory 2.0. And, now, one of the war's principal architects tells us that everything could have been avoided if we'd just "handed the keys" over to a passel of crooks you wouldn't trust to park your car. To hell with being fired. When are some of these clucks going to simply get laughed out of town?

Still...

Some people are going to vote even though they've been told they will be killed if they do. Nobody in this 40-percent turnout, sucker-for-the-cheap-wedge-issue, talk-show-babbling country of ours has a right to do anything but admire that, and make sure that the undeniable courage on display doesn't get sold down the river for a three-point bump in some future Gallup Poll. This war isn't just a monumental blunder. It's also an ongoing act of betrayal by a bunch of second-rate thinkers who never in their lives have displayed an ounce of the courage that some anonymous woman in Baghdad will evince today.

Voting took place today, apparently with some violence, but not as much as some might have feared. But the voting is only a part of the story, and maybe not even the most important right now. This report from the pro-war Senior Editor of the New Republic Lawrence Kaplan sees the project of liberal democracy as already failed in Iraq (note that he uses the word "liberal" in its more traditional sense, defining "liberal democracy" as "a political system that protects basic rights and freedoms").