Coup De Village

by digby

Does any of this remotely seem like a good idea? The mere fact that the US is so obviously running this thing automatically makes it an enormous mistake. And it’s not just because it’s so transparent that there can be no doubt that Allawi will be seen as a puppet. It’s a huge mistake because aside from looting the treasury and stealing elections, everything the Bush administration touches turns to shit. Aside from the embarrassingly blatant hypocrisy, does anyone believe they could pull this off and make it work?

Some see ‘coup’ as Iraq’s best hope

In the lobbies of luxury hotels and the apartments of exiles, an assortment of Iraqi politicians has been spending the summer vacation plotting a new Iraqi coup — a non-violent, parliamentary coup to be sure, but a coup nonetheless, that would oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, declare a state of emergency and install a new government.

At the forefront of these efforts is former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who was Washington’s first choice to lead Iraq after the U.S. occupation authority ended. He now is being presented by his followers as the best hope of saving Iraq from what they say is certain catastrophe.

But Allawi’s is by no means the only name in circulation. Another former prime minister, two current vice presidents, a former planning minister, an Iraqi general from the old regime and an independent Sunni parliamentarian are among those being mentioned as potential alternatives.

“Everyone is desperate to be prime minister,” said Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni politician who has thrown his support behind Allawi but who has also been mentioned as a potential candidate. “Iraq is producing prime ministers.”

The dream of dislodging the Shiite-led government by forming a coalition from a disparate assortment of disgruntled Sunnis, Shiites and secularists dates to the beginning of the year, when the plotting to replace al-Maliki began in earnest in the relative safety of Amman. But the effort was given new momentum by a statement from President Bush last week, in which he hinted for the first time that U.S. support for al-Maliki was waning.

“If the government doesn’t … respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government,” Bush said at a news conference in Quebec. “That’s up to the Iraqis to make that decision, not American politicians.”

[…]

“There’s been a definite change in tone from Washington, and the momentum and drive to support Allawi will increase,” said Jaafar al-Taie, a political analyst involved in the new coalition’s campaign. “It’s not only that Maliki must go, but that the whole system must go.”

According to Allawi’s published program, the parliamentarians would not only appoint a new government but also suspend the new constitution, declare a state of emergency and make the restoration of security its priority.

Whether the U.S. would countenance what amounts effectively to the unraveling of the entire political process built since its March 2003 invasion is unclear. The day after he seemed to endorse al-Maliki’s removal, Bush backtracked, reiterating his support for the prime minister and calling him a “good guy.”

But Allawi’s supporters are heartened by signs that Washington is coming round to the view that al-Maliki might not be a permanent figure.

Two days before Bush spoke, Allawi signed a $300,000 contract with the Washington lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffiths and Rogers to represent his interests, according to a copy of the contract obtained by the Web site Iraqslogger.com and confirmed by Allawi on CNN. The head of the firm’s international relations department is Robert Blackwill, a longtime adviser to Bush who served as his special envoy to Iraq.

“Even when Bush tried to modify what he said, he did not go so far,” said Izzat Shabandar, a strategist with the Allawi bloc. “We know that Bush from inside would like to replace Maliki, but he did not say it clearly. He chose to say it in a diplomatic way.”

Do read the rest to get an idea of how absurdly complicated this whole thing is. Just the fact that we all know about this and that American newspapers are printing this stuff is bizarre in itself. It’s a public coup — Americans and Iraqis alike are all reading about it and talking about it like it’s a TV show and we’re all waiting to see the finale.

The country needs to face what “pulling it off” means. They are planning to: “suspend the new constitution, declare a state of emergency and make the restoration of security its priority.” Too bad Saddam isn’t around to give them some pointers. Of course, they are allowing former Baathists in on this and Allawi knows his way around an execution, so his legacy will live on.

I just keep writing this every day and it just keeps unfolding. We are clearly attempting to stage a coup and put a strongman/puppet in charge of Iraq to “restore security.” For some reason nobody seems worried that this will fuel more terrorism and hatred against America around the world since we will be seen as pulling the strings. In fact, the administration seems to want the world to see that we are pulling the strings. Apparently, they still believe, even after throwing away all the good will built up over 50 years and proving themselves to be abject failures at occupying and reconstructing the country we invaded for no good reason, that it is a good idea for the United States to be throwing its weight around even more in the middle east.

Yesterday I heard David Frum saying we had to win to preserve American “prestige.” I was in the car and almost wrecked it I was laughing so hard. Prestige? These people threw out our prestige the minute that moron and his Robespierre in the White House decided to attack the wrong country and then screwed it up so royally that the United States of America now looks like a bumbling, useless giant who couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a daisy cutter. “Prestige” is completely beside the point. We have so much work to do to build back our reputation for even baseline competence and ability to reason that we are now actually in some danger that even more none too bright fanatics will decide that taking us on isn’t all that dangerous anymore.

So Bush is planning a coup to install our own totalitarian dictator. Fantastic. You’ll find this especially amusing: he’s given a bunch of interviews to a biographer telling him that his post presidency plans are to make a lot of money and run something he calls “‘a fantastic Freedom Institute’ promoting democracy around the world.”

You cannot make this stuff up.

Oh, and then there’s this. Seems they may very well be planning to shoot the moon:

They [the source’s institution] have “instructions” (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this–they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is “plenty.”

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