Bush's fly-in insignificant for Iraq's future

[buycitgo]

In which, EastCoast Elitist rips the tots off the cynical photo-op, opines that, as usual the REAL story is being obscured.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/chi-0311300026nov30,1,7509025.story?coll=chi-printcommentary-hed

this story dovetails with two other recent ones linked here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23902-2003Nov30.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/chi-0311280264nov28,1,6521402.story?coll=chi-printnews-hed

Also, I tried to get Jim Warren, of the Tribune, to comment on this story during his radio show. I called in, interrupting his reverie based upon Mike Allen's nauseating display of supine Thanksgiving fealty the other day.

moving right along:

President Bush's unexpected visit to Iraq on Thanksgiving Day astonished and delighted American troops there, but it will have little effect on Iraq's future. Indeed, it underscores American domination--precisely the wrong message for a successful stabilization of the country.

meat of story:

Despite his domination of the Thanksgiving Day news, President Bush was not the most important actor in Iraq last week. His flamboyant, but ultimately ineffective gesture contrasts sharply with the quiet but highly influential actions of grand ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most senior of the Shiite clerics in the holy city of Najaf. Sistani, with little noise or fanfare, effectively derailed the plans of U.S. administrator Paul Bremer with a fatwa (religious opinion) calling for election of a government next summer, before a constitution is in place. Bremer favors the writing of a constitution by a handpicked, American-controlled council before elections sometime in 2005.

Despite desperate efforts to convince Sistani to adopt Bremer's plan, or to get other authoritative ayatollahs to issue counter-opinions, Sistani's view prevailed. He would not alter his prescription, and no other cleric would contradict him. This leaves Washington with little choice but to acquiesce.

The contrast between Sistani's substantive action and the empty bravado of Bush shows how desperately far apart the United States and the Iraqi people are in their goals for the country. President Bush emphasizes some vague and indeterminate American "victory," whereas Sistani asserts Iraq's concrete right to self-determination without American interference.

and Beeman, of Brown U., doesn't even bother to mention how Sistani made Talabani (from other similar articles) look like a little boy, instantly reversing his support for Bremer's plan after one meeting with the Shiite cleric.

this should be good.

[dbt]

1. We should have learned 'fatwa' a LONG time ago

The one from Ali Sistani is the first, and probably the mildest, of more to come. How long until a fatwa is issued along the lines of "Kill all Americans?"

:freak:
dbt