Speaking of Sobriety

The Bush administration should get off the sauce. There's an Associated Press report from Baghdad that the Bush administration is pushing for "a national front to take over for the political bloc now supporting [Prime Minister] al-Maliki."

Dreams die hard with people who are drunk on their own fantasies and it looks like the Bush administration is pushing yet again for a secular government in Iraq. The Bush administration's idea is that a secular government would be more broadly representative, less closely connected to Iran, and a better model of democracy for other Arab countries than a Shiite government.

All of that sounds good in theory, but there is hardly any support for secular government in Iraq. Perhaps the Bush administration hasn't noticed that Iraq has become a much more religious place since the invasion in 2003 and Ayad Allawi's secular party got Joe Lieberman numbers in the last Iraqi election.

If the Bush administration replaced al-Maliki with a secular alliance, they would be plucking "a thousand dangers" on their heads to paraphrase Shakespeare's Richard II. Most importantly, they would be exchanging a one front war against the Sunni insurgents for a two front war against Sunni insurgents and the Shiite political parties and their militias. Bush and his people want a war against the Shiite militias, but they forget that the militias have the support of the Shiite population. So, going to war against the Shiite militias would be the same as waging war against the whole Shiite population.

The Bush administration is also under the delusion that an Allawi secular government would be a strong government. How could that be? An Allawi government would be a loose coalition of mutually suspicious secularists, Sunni moderates, and Kurds that wouldn't have popular support among eithe the 60% of Shiites or the 15% of Sunnis. If the Bush administration thinks that the al-Maliki government is weak and indecisive, wait until they see how weak and indecisive a secular government would be. Given the mutual incompatibility of the Sunnis, Kurds, and secular groups, any secular government would be even more paralyzed than the current regime.
Another problem is that a secular government would be seen in Iraq as even more of an American puppet than the current regime. Such a perception would further weaken any secular government. Especially because it would be true.

As has always been the case with Iraq, the Bush administration seems determined to take a bad situation and make it even worse.

Perhaps Bush should follow Pope Benedict's advice and govern with more sobriety.