Juan Cole is on a roll

He's in his element now. This guy knows more than all of shrubCo put together. I'd like to see him and Rummy go toe to toe.

The CPA told them that they cracked down on Muqtada because his militias threatened to make democracy impossible. I wonder if what they really meant to say was that his militias threatened to make it impossible for the Pentagon to install Ahmad Chalabi as prime minister.

Allawi's place on the Security Commission was taken by Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, a Shiite and former member of the Basra branch of the radical al-Da`wa party, who is now close to Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Ahmad Chalabi has increasingly associated himself with Rubaie and other pro-Sistani Shiites on the IGC.

So, my question is, was Badran gotten rid of and Allawi sidelined because the Pentagon is now at the endgame, intending to shoehorn Chalabi into power in Iraq? Are the rivals to Chalabi, from Muqtada to Allawi, being targetted one after another by Rumsfeld's representatives in Baghdad? We by now know how completely hollow the talk of Rumsfeld and crew about "democratization" is. How many people have been elected to office on a one-person, one-vote basis in Afghanistan, Iraq, or any place else as a result of Rumsfeld's policies? Everyone is appointed or jiggered into office by a manipulated Loya Jirga. Chalabi seems set to be jiggered into office. And, his militia appears not to be considered a threat to democracy, since the Pentagon even flew it into Iraq.

http://www.juancole.com/