Baghdad Hand (Over) Job: "Who's On First?"

Does the composition of the new interim government in Iraq reflect a waning of Neocon clout inside the Bush White House? Has State nudged out Defense as manager of the occupation? Or am I just hallucinating? Read my new column in L.A. Weekly.

Comments

[matt]

Excellent article, as usual.

[Tom Grey]

I think your desire to find sticks with which to Bash Bush is blinding you to what is obvious.
Bush's goal in Iraq is for IRAQIs to have more influence, not US DOD or US DOS.

Iraq decision making will not always be what the Bushies want -- but what Bush needs is for the Iraq decisions to be such that Iraq Police are willing to fight, kill, and die to enforce the Iraq laws.

And one year is far too short to expect a lot of it; 4 years later in Kosovo, under the UN, and they're still doing ethnic cleansing (with press censorship?).

Jay Gardner (3 weeks?) was Rummy's guy; Bremer is more Powell & State. In any case, the biggest past mistake is too few local city councils elected, and NO budgetary authority for any. Bremer should have been pushing local city elections; and letting the elected local Iraqis issue municipal bonds to borrow money for local reconstruction, and let the Iraqis control that money. Powell's 18 billion would still be better spent by using it to fund Iraq bond issues.

The future issue is whether there will be national party lists (proportional representation) or local constituency (first past the post) districts. If it's PR, expect a future 3-state Iraq, or serious, constant, nationalist movements very negative to good reforms.