Marionette

A wonder! It's a balanced, sensible editorial in the LA Times, (click here for BugMeNot):

The Senate and House want a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq. That's fine, as long as they don't try to run the war.

[It] is bad precedent and bad public policy for Congress to attempt to micromanage military operations in Iraq. As Bush said Wednesday: "It makes no sense for politicians in Washington, D.C., to be dictating arbitrary timelines for our military commanders in a war zone 6,000 miles away."

Although Congress' stand may be irrelevant from a policy standpoint — no troops will be withdrawn because of it — it can still have practical value, placing additional pressure on the president to get Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's government more involved in policing its own citizens. If you don't make progress, Bush can tell Maliki, Congress may withdraw U.S. troops altogether. And then you'll really be in trouble.

Unfortunately, the Maliki government appears incapable of winning credibility and support among Iraqis.

And that last sentence sums up the problem: Iraqis do not want a secular republic. What they do want is to grovel before a puerile and capricious god, tread water until they die, then claim their reward in Paradise. If they had really wanted a democratic government, they would have ousted and killed Saddam themselves.

We accomplished all that we could reasonably expect to accomplish in Iraq: we eliminated a dangerous dictator -- which we should have done in 1991, by the way -- who was known to consort with terrorists and murder his own people by the bushel-load. Problem is, the Bush administration didn't know when to cash in their chips and head back to the room for some sleep.

The interim Iraqi government, (do not mistake it for anything else), is an artificial construct of American foreign policy. Like a dog walking on its hind legs or a lucid LA Times editorial, it's an interesting curiosity, worthy of applause at the time it happens, but it's not something you expect to occur regularly. You certainly don't start imagining you can teach the dog to tap dance. The most you can hope for is to teach it not to bite people and to scratch at the door when it needs to pee. That's because it's a dog. If you try to make it into homo sapiens, you'll be sorely disappointed in the results.