Disconnects

"Meet Me in St. Louie." In today's St. Lous Post-Dispatch, there's a picture of an American soldier being greeted a wheel-chair bound comrade as he disembarks his plane. The disconnects are painful. Spc. Nathaniel Krotzer of the 463rd MP unit exudes health, wholeness, and physical authority as he leans to talk with Spc. Brandon Breyer in his chair. But Breyer lost part of a leg while he was serving in Iraq and looks thin and helplessly eager in his chair. Any physical authority Breyer had is gone as the aura of his immersion in rehab and his dependence on government services hangs about him. Still, both men are aware of the thin line that separates their disconnected physical conditions. It's a big part of what ties them together.

Moqtada! The execution of Saddam Hussein was supposed to be a sweet moment of vindication for the Bush administration. But it's yet another measure of the disconnect between the Bush administration and events in Iraq that Saddam's death turned out to be a vindication of Shiite rather than American power. According to one of Saddam Hussein's lawyers, Prime Minister al-Maliki timed the execution to coincide with the Muslim holy day of Eid as " a gift" to the Dawa religious party without any expression of gratitude to Maliki's American allies. To add insult to injury, the guards shouted Moqtada in tribute to the firebrand Shiite cleric as Saddam was being prepared for hanging. It was Moqtada's power that was triumphing over Saddam Hussein not the power of the Americans. Indeed, Saddam's last word was "Moqtada."

The spectre of Iran. Neo-conservatives like Sen. Joseph Lieberman are working overtime to recast the conflict in Iraq as part of the regional struggle between "moderation" and the "extremism" directed from Iran. But the "spectre of Iran" is yet another attempt by the right-wing to promote the war by creating a disconnect between the American public and the situation in the Middle East. Iran is a bit player in Iraq. Moqtada al-Sadr might get a bit of financial help from the Iranians, but his power base is in Iraq's democratic political structures and popular Shiite resentment over the American occupation. The American occupation made al-Sadr into a popular leader not the Iranians. But once Sadr became an important figure, he felt much more of a natural connection with fellow Shiites in Iran than he felt with the American occupiers. The same has been the case with the other Shiite parties which look at the Iranians as a potential stabilizing force while they see the Bush administration as fundamentally disconnected.