Bush Contemplates Rebirth of Dictatorship for Iraq

[KJF]

I got a very nasty jolt when I read this:

There was a big clue planted at the bottom of the very long lead article in The New York Times of August 17.

...

The last three paragraphs of this story revealed that “senior administration officials . . . are considering alternatives other than democracy,” according to a military expert who was just briefed at the White House.

Hmmm, “alternatives other than democracy.”

My, what can those be?

Monarchy? Dictatorship?

...

The Bush Administration may be looking for an Iraqi Stroessner, or another, more reliable Saddam.

That may have been what Cheney and Rumsfeld had in mind all along. From the very beginning, they wanted to install in power Ahmad Chalabi and his groups of exiles roosting in the Iraqi National Congress, writes George Packer in his book The Assassin’s Gate. When the situation in Iraq began to deteriorate, Cheney blamed those in the Administration who refused to go along with this plan.
http://progressive.org/mag_wx081706

Juan Cole says:

Matthew Rothschild reads the NYT tea leaves and concludes that Bush may be contemplating bringing in a strong man to rule Iraq and giving up on this democracy business.

One quibble. The strong man wouldn't be Chalabi, who is afraid to scuff his Gucci shoes. It would be a Shiite ex-Baathist officer in the old Iraqi army who knew how to make people an offer they couldn't refuse.

As for the merits of the plan, it would not work. The general Iraqi population is politically mobilized and well armed, and the Iraqi state is weak, as are its armed forces. You'd need an army with 6,000 tanks and lots of helicopter gunships, loyal to its leader and willing to kill thousands of innocent oridary Iraqis. None of these prerequisites exist, and probably won't for a while, if ever.
http://www.juancole.com/2006/08/48-killed-dozens-wounded-basra-tribal.html

Interesting, eh?