Showing posts with label Sarah Palin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarah Palin. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 05, 2014

The Good of This Election


The Good of This Election



First of all, I apologize to those of you who got the strange post from my on "How to Vote".  It's the last time I try to post online, live, while using a portable laptop in a moving vehicle.  Also, the site only sends out the first version, not the corrected one, so I simply deleted that one sentence thing.

So, welcome to the kinder, gentler, Absurd Times.  It will be wry, however.  I just like that word wry.  Those of you who are in Moldovia or Ukraine and use Google Translate to read this, good luck.  (However, in Russian it is перекошенный. which comes out as "wry."  Very wry outcome, in my opinion.

OK.  So, what do we get from this last election?

Instead of trying to cover the folly in an article, I took to Twitter (Absurd Times @honestcharlie) because it really was appropriate for one liners, not analysis.

Example: Don't vote for anyone who lists castrating hogs as her qualification for the Senate.

            Vote for anyone who is accused of being "Corrupt" -- at least they have played the game before.

This election will go a long way towards furthering the careers of political satirists.  Add a Republican Presidents, and things will be even funnier.  Remember how funny the McCain/Palin combination was?  It got so most people visualized Tina Fey when the name "Sarah Palin" was mentioned.

To give you an example, today a non-profession stated that Nick Wallendsa (whoever it was who did that stunt in Chicago at the Marina Towers recently) announced that he would walk a tightrope across Ted Cruz's open mouth.  So, things are looking up already.

I did not see or hear Obama's press conference or speech earlier, but I was outside dining and the person opposite me looked up and saw him on the TV with a map of Syria and Iraq.  I was asked what he was saying.  Well, I had no idea and did not look back, but did mention that Henry IV advised his son, soon to be Henry V, to keep people busy with wars against a foreign enemy in the people you rule start to complain.  Give them a common, foreign, enemy.  My guess is that was the point, but I'm not sure.

Every single so-called "Left-Wing" ballot initiative passed almost everywhere: legalizing pot, supporting a woman's right to choose, overwhelming support for a higher minimum wage, expanded single payer insurance (as in government), legalizing gay marriage (why should they be exempt?), and so on.  The Democrats might think about such things the next time around.

Of course, then things wouldn't be so funny.  Nixon gave everyone lots of laughs.  Reagan brought out the best in Bedtime for Bonzo  and did Clint Eastwood impressions for us.  In fact, he re-enacted lots of movies for us.  Even when he had to withdraw the marines from Lebanon, he snapped into action by invading Grenada.  Why?  Well, there were Cuban construction workers there -- those guys can be tough, you know.

The Bushes were a goldmine.  They were the Arbustos (means shrub in Spanish) of the day.  I mean, these days Obama has to supply the punch lines by himself.  When asked why Donald Trump was so vicious about him, Obama said "It all goes back to when we played soccer together in school growing up in Kenya."  Who could top him?

No, we need a Republican president. 

Well, this has already been too long, considering that about a third or more of our readers are overseas, so we will be back to the real world with the next issue.

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Friday, February 27, 2009

Jindal's Response -- Exclusive -- First Draft! (Continued)

THE ABSURD TIMES
Note: This is a follow-up to the last publication. CPAC, a group of "conservative" lunatics is currently meeting in Washington, D.C. and they insist that the following was indeed Jindal's original speech, despite my statement that it was over 400 years old. They said "It sounds like that to you, but your statement sounds like Socialism to us." So, I've continued to transcribe the letter, but reprinted the first part.
Here is an exclusive copy of the first draft of Bobby Jindal's speech delivered as the Republican response to Omama's speech. The Times can not reveal the source of this document:
This draft has been heavily guarded as it is, after all, written by a Republican.
Many right-wingers were disappointed by the speech as delivered and only one, Rush Limbaugh, had the courage to defend it. He must have seen the first draft (above) as it is far better written than the one actually delivered.
Since we at the Times have had training in reading such handwriting, we will take a closer look at it and put it into print:
"Pleaseth it your honourable Lordship toching Marlowes monstrous opinions as I cannot but with an agreved conscience think on him or them so cam I but particularize fewe in the respect of them that kept him greater company."
So far, as you can seen, he got Obama's name wrong, but it is clear that he dislikes his policy.
It continues: "Howbeit in discharg of dutie both towardw God, your Lordships & the world thus much haue I thought good breiflie to discover in all humbleness...."
Wait a minute, this does not seem like Jindal wrote it. I've seen it before. Oh yeah, it was written by Thomas Kyd, author of The Spanish Tragedy. Never mind.
****************
They are working on a new flu vaccine that will stop ALL strains of the flu, but that does not mean you can stop watching out for sneezing birds.
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Ffirst, it was his custom when I knewe him first & as I heare saie he contynyewed it, in table talk or otherwise to iest at the devine scriptures gybe and praiers, & stryve in argument to frustrate & confute what hath byn spoke or qrytt be prophets & such holie men.
1 He wold report St. John to be our saviour Christes Alexis I cover it with reverence and trembling that is that Christ did loue him with an extraordinary loue. [He was gay]
2 That for me to wryte a poem of St paules conversion as I was determined he said wold be as if I shold go wryte a book of fast & loose, exteming Paul a Jugler.
3 That the prodigall Childs portion was but fower nobles he held his purse so nere the bottom in all pictures, and that it either was a iest of els fowr nobles then was thought a great patrimony not thinking it a parable.
I am not going to transcribe the fourth one -- well, ok:
4 That things esteemed to be donn be devine power might haue aswell been don by observation of men all which he wold so sodenlie take slight occasion to slyp out as I & many others in regard of his other rashness in attempting soden pryvie iniures to men did ouerslypp through often reprehend him for it & for which god is my witnes aswell by my lords comaundment as in hatred of this Life & thoughts I left & did refraine his companie.
He wold perswade with men of qualitie to goe vnto the k of scotts whether I heare Royden is gon and where if he had liud he told me when I sawe him last he meant to be.
Now, as I understand it, number one is an attack on Obama's tolerance for gays, 2 has to do with his statements on religious freedom. Obama, after all, did include Muslims as deserving respect and, a greater sin, says Jindal, was that he included unbelievers as deserving freedom as well.
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Anyway, in attendance at the CPAC is Joe the Plumber, Ron Paul, and Rush Limbaugh is to be given a special award. Sarah Palin did not attend, perhaps finding it too right wing? John McCain was not there, but Newt Gingrich, I belief [believe] it was, called McCain a "socialist". Great fun is being had by all.
finis

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Say it isn't so, Sarah

THE ABSURD TIMES



Illustration: "Shoeless" Joe Jackson.

I've been asked a few times what I thought of the debate and I've really tried hard to think of something worth mentioning in it. Finally, I've salvaged a bit.
When she started, Sarah Palin asked Biden if she could call him "Joe." It seemed phony to me at the time, but I had no idea how stupid the whole thing was.
The only reason she asked him that, was so she could try out a line on him, "Say it ain't so, Joe." Someone in the McCain group thought this was be a crowd pleaser. No one got it.
It is a line supposedly from the 1919 "Black Sox" scandal in Chicago. Some key players on the Sox conspired to throw the world Series and a boy supposedly and plaintively said to the great Joe Jackson, "Say it ain't so, Joe."
Supposedly, Jackson said "'Fraid it is, son, 'fraid it is."
Well, the whole thing was made up. Joe Jackson holds the record for the highest batting average for a rookie (.408) and has the third highest lifetime average. He was found not guilty, but still was banished from baseball for all time. Babe Ruth copied his batting stance. The team did throw the series, but that was because the players were ripped off by the White Sox management, Comiskey and all. I'd have done the same thing. It's the kind of behavior that finally led to the elimination of the reserve clause and the high salaries the players get today. Serves the owners right.
I repeat, the whole "Say it aint so, Joe" bit was a lie. Made up. Worse, repeated by a hockey mom that should be playing goalie without padding. And it bombed. Does she believe it happened? Say it ain't so, Sarah.
Below is an exerpt from the St. Louis Sportsman, a direct quote from Joe Jackson himself:


"I guess the biggest joke of all was that story that got out about "Say it ain't so, Joe." Charley Owens of the Chicago Daily News was responsible for that, but there wasn't a bit of truth in it. It was supposed to have happened the day I was arrested in September of 1920, when I came out of the courtroom.
"There weren't any words passed between anybody except me and a deputy sheriff. When I came out of the building this deputy asked me where I was going, and I told him to the Southside. He asked me for a ride and we got in the car together and left. There was a big crowd hanging around the front of the building, but nobody else said anything to me. It just didn't happen, that's all. Charley Owens just made up a good story and wrote it. Oh, I would have said it ain't so, all right, just like I'm saying it now."

Sarah -- IT AIN'T SO!

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Exclusive -- Palin's First Interview

THE ABSURD TIMES




I was able to contact Sarah Palin while she was in a suburb of Kansas City. How? I channeled her.

This was not easy to do, as there were no Gypsies nearby, and the Indians were afraid. So I found the next best thing -- a wino on the streets downtown. The first image I got was that pictured above. The following is a transcript of the interview:

AT: How often do you masturbate?
SP: That's a sexist remark! Sexist!!
AT: Really?
SP: Look, I shoot Moose and Wolves, mainly outta a place using an automatic rifle. So look out, bud.
AT: Don't call me your bud!
SP: How'd you like me to sink my teeth into your neck and suck the frigging blood out?
AT: Who is interviewing whom?
SP: You sound like a "Community Organizer," but you're white.
AT: Bill Kunstler and Ghandi and Throeau were community organizers.
SP: See, sucker, a Jew, a foreigner, and a hippie.
AT: I thought you were the sucker.

About this time, the wino started to shake and shiver, so I hit him on the head with a hammer and went about my business. Later in the day, Keith Tucker, of www.whatnowtoons.com sent me a photo of a community organizer:


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Oh yeah, and now a word about an issue, just for a change:

Tom Dispatch

posted 2008-09-07 19:03:21

Tomgram: Michael Schwartz, Is American Success a Failure in Iraq?

Recently, Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has shown striking signs of wanting to be his own man in Baghdad, not Washington's (as has Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul). What happens when parrots suddenly speak and puppets squawk on their own? The answer, it seems, is simple enough: You listen in; so, at least, the lastest revelations of journalist Bob Woodward seem to indicate. "The Bush administration," reports the Washington Post, "has conducted an extensive spying operation on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his staff and others in the Iraqi government, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. 'We know everything [Maliki] says,' according to one of multiple sources Woodward cites about the practice." This is perhaps what is meant when it's claimed that President Bush and Maliki have a "close working relationship."

An Iraqi government spokesman responded to the revelation with shock: "If it is a fact, it reflects that there is no trust and it reflects also that the institutions in the United States are used to spying on their friends and their enemies in the same way. If it is true, it casts a shadow on the future relations with such institutions."

"Trust"? Please... Wasn't that always just a synonym for electronic eavesdropping?

As for "success" in Iraq, which we've been hearing quite a lot about lately in the U.S., here's one way to measure the administration's trust in its own "success": The Pentagon, we now learn, has just "recommended" to President Bush that there should be no further troop drawdowns in Iraq until a new president enters office in January 2009 -- and even then, possibly in February, that no more than 7,500 Americans should be withdrawn, and only if "conditions" permit. So the administration's "success" in Iraq could, in terms of troop levels, be measured this way: The U.S. invaded and occupied that country in the spring of 2003 with approximately 130,000 troops. According to Thomas Ricks in his bestselling book Fiasco, by that fall, its top officials fully expected to have only about 30,000 troops still in the country, stationed at newly built American bases largely outside major urban areas.

In January 2007, when the President's desperate "surge" strategy was launched, there were still approximately 130,000 U.S. troops in the country, and, of course, tens of thousands of hired guns from firms like Blackwater Worldwide. Today, there are approximately 146,000 troops in Iraq (and the U.S. is spending more money on armed "private security contractors" than ever before). By next February, according to Pentagon plans, there would still be about 139,000 troops in Iraq, 9,000 more than in April 2003, as well as more than early in Bush's second term, as Juan Cole pointed out recently -- and that's if everything goes reasonably well, which, under the circumstances, is a big "if" indeed.

As Michael Schwartz indicates below, for all the talk over the years about "tipping points" reached and "corners" turned, it's just possible that -- while the Bush administration and the McCain campaign are pounding the drums of "success" -- the U.S. might be heading for an unexpected and resounding defeat. Moreover, it might well be administered by the very government Washington has supported all these years, whose true allies may turn out to be living not in Camp Victory, the huge U.S. base on the outskirts of Baghdad, but in Tehran. Let Schwartz, whose superb new history of this nightmare, War Without End: The Iraq War in Context, is due out later this month, explain to you just how the Bush administration is likely to wrest actual defeat from the jaws of self-proclaimed victory. Tom

Who Lost Iraq?

Is the Maliki Government Jumping Off the American Ship of State?
By Michael Schwartz

As the Bush administration was entering office in 2000, Donald Rumsfeld exuberantly expressed its grandiose ambitions for Middle East domination, telling a National Security Council meeting: "Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that's aligned with U.S. interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond."

A few weeks later, Bush speechwriter David Frum offered an even more exuberant version of the same vision to the New York Times Magazine: "An American-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and the replacement of the radical Baathist dictatorship with a new government more closely aligned with the United States, would put America more wholly in charge of the region than any power since the Ottomans, or maybe even the Romans."

>From the moment on May 1, 2003, when the President declared "major combat operations… ended" on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, such exuberant administration statements have repeatedly been deflated by events on the ground. Left unsaid through all the twists and turns in Iraq has been this: Whatever their disappointments, administration officials never actually gave up on their grandiose ambitions. Through thick and thin, Washington has sought to install a regime "aligned with U.S. interests" -- a government ready to cooperate in establishing the United States as the predominant power in the Middle East.

Recently, with significantly lower levels of violence in Iraq extending into a second year, Washington insiders have begun crediting themselves with -- finally -- a winning strategy (a claim neatly punctured by Juan Cole, among other Middle East experts). In this context, actual Bush policy aims have, once again, emerged more clearly, but so has the administration's striking and continual failure to implement them -- thanks to the Iraqis.

In the past few weeks, the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has made it all too clear that, in the long run, it has little inclination to remain "aligned with U.S. interests" in the region. In fact, we may be witnessing a classic "tipping point," a moment when Washington's efforts to dominate the Middle East are definitively deep-sixed.

The client state that the Bush administration has spent so many years and hundreds of billions of dollars creating, nurturing, and defending has shown increasing disloyalty and lack of gratitude, as well as an ever stronger urge to go its own way. Under the pressure of Iraqi politics, Maliki has moved strongly in the direction of a nationalist position on two key issues: the continuing American occupation of the country and the future of Iraqi oil. In the process, he has sought to distance his government from the Bush administration and to establish congenial relationships, if not an outright alliance, with Washington's international adversaries, including the Bush administration's mortal enemy, Iran.

Withdrawal Becomes an Official Issue

Perhaps the most dramatic symbol of this new independence is the Iraqi government's resistance to a Washington proposal for a "status of forces agreement" (SOFA) that would allow for a permanent and uninhibited U.S. military presence in Iraq.

With the impending expiration of the UN resolutions that gave legal cover to the U.S. military presence in Iraq, the SOFA negotiations are crucial. They began with a proposal that expressed the full extent of Washington's ambitions to utilize Iraq as the base for making the U.S. "more wholly in charge of the region than any power since the Ottomans, or maybe even the Romans." The proposal first leaked to the press in June 2008 was essentially a major land grab, including provisions like the following that would not have seemed out of place in a nineteenth century colonial treaty:

*An indefinite number of U.S. troops would remain in Iraq indefinitely, stationed on up to 58 bases in locations determined by the United States.

*These troops would be allowed to mount attacks on any target inside Iraq without the permission of, or even notification to, Iraqi authorities.

*U.S. military and civilian authorities would be free to use Iraqi territory to mount attacks against any of Iraq's neighbors without permission from the Iraqi government.

*The U.S. would control Iraqi airspace up to 30,000 feet, freeing the U.S. Air Force to strike as it wishes inside Iraq and creating the basis for the use of, or passage through, Iraq's air space for planes bent on attacking other countries.

*The U.S. military and its private contractors would be immune from Iraqi law, even for actions unrelated to their military duties.

*Iraq's defense, interior, and national security ministries (and all of Iraq's arms purchases) would be under U.S. supervision for 10 years.

When leaked (clearly by Iraqis involved in the negotiations), this proposal generated opposition across the political spectrum from parliament to the streets. It was even denounced by the usually silent Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shia Ayatollah. Soon, Prime Minister Maliki made clear his own rejection of the proposal, setting in motion a chaotic negotiating process in which the Iraqis seem to have argued vehemently for a more modest, briefer U.S. presence, as well as a definite deadline for full withdrawal -- a proposal that was anathema to the Bush administration.

By early August, when the details of a new proposal endorsed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began to leak out, it was clear that U.S. negotiators had given way, granting significant concessions to the Iraqi side. According to Iraqi insiders, the new draft agreement called for U.S. troops to be completely withdrawn from Iraqi cities, where most of the fighting usually takes place, by the summer of 2009. All U.S. troops -- not just the "combat" troops usually mentioned when Democrats talk about withdrawal timelines in Iraq -- would have to be gone by the end of 2011.

If the leaked draft were implemented, the U.S. would leave behind those 58 bases, including the five massive "enduring" bases into which the Bush administration has poured billions of dollars. Moreover, the unhindered scope of action Washington had originally demanded for its forces would be dramatically limited: The U.S. would not have the right to attack other countries from Iraqi soil, its ability to conduct operations within Iraq would be circumscribed, and immunity from prosecution would be restricted to U.S. military personnel (and then only when they were participating in approved military actions).

Symptomatic of the loosening U.S. grip on its Iraqi client government were the reactions of the two sides to the leaked provisions of the new version of the agreement. Secretary of State Rice declared it "acceptable" and explained uneasily that the timeline proposed was not the sort of fixed withdrawal date that the Bush administration had long adamantly rejected, but an "aspirational" "time horizon" that would depend on "conditions" in Iraq.

Maliki, in all likelihood responding to the fervor of public protests to Rice's comments, immediately declared the agreement unacceptable unless the deadline for withdrawal was time-based and unconditional. In a well publicized speech to a gathering of tribal sheiks, he said that any agreement must be based on the principle that "no foreign soldier remains in Iraq after a specific deadline, not an open time frame." In further clarifying his remarks, a key aide told the Associated Press that "the last American soldiers must leave Iraq by the end of 2011, regardless of conditions at the time."

The latest reports suggest that a further round of secret negotiations had restored some U.S. demands, including full immunity for American soldiers (but not mercenary fighters), and application of the withdrawal deadline to combat troops only. Such concessions by Maliki, however, appeared certain to trigger another round of protest and resistance in the streets and in the Iraqi Parliament.

Whatever their outcome, the still-unfinished negotiations point to something quite new in the relationship between the two governments. Until recently, the Iraqi leadership faithfully sought to enact whatever policies the Bush administration favored (though its capacity to implement them was always in question). With the proposed SOFA, this posture disappeared, replaced by a clear antagonism to Washington's desires. With its formidable weapons (including 146,000 soldiers on the ground), Washington is bound to win at least some of these confrontations, but what we may be seeing is the end of the dream of a regime "closely aligned" with U.S. policies.

The Re-emergence of Oil Nationalism

Nothing better highlights this transformation than oil policy. From the beginning of its occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration sought to quadruple Iraqi oil production by delivering control of the industry to the major international oil companies. Once given free rein to act on their own discretion, Washington policymakers believed that the oil majors would invest vast sums in modernizing existing fields, activate undeveloped reserves using the most advanced technology available, and discover major new fields utilizing state-of-the-art exploration and extraction methods.

Up until 2007, the Iraqi government was an active ally in this enterprise, even though the vast majority of Iraqis -- including the powerful oil workers union, the religious leadership, and a majority of Parliament -- vehemently opposed these plans, demanding instead that control of the industry remain in government hands. In 2004, the U.S.-appointed Iraqi government enthusiastically endorsed an International Monetary Fund agreement that mandated the development of major Iraqi oil reserves by international oil companies. When those companies found the legal basis for such investment too fragile to risk vast sums of capital, the Iraqi government (surrounded by American advisors) immediately began work on an oil law that would presumably provide a more secure foundation for their investment. In the meantime, informal advice was accepted from the oil majors, whose technicians were placed in charge of various engineering operations within the country.

In 2007, when the oil law was finally delivered to the Iraqi Parliament, it met with unremitting opposition. The always strong oil unions immediately began a ferocious resistance campaign that stalled the law.

None of these developments altered the Bush administration's determination to push the law through. They did not, however, anticipate that the Maliki administration itself would become a further source of opposition. As Charles Ries told journalists on leaving his position as U.S. Economic Ambassador to Iraq in August 2008 after a year of failure, "When I got here… I was quite optimistic it was only a month or two [before the petroleum bill would be passed, but the] more I understood what the real issues were… it was clear this was going to be a major political challenge."

While Ries was on the job, even the leadership of the Ministry of Oil, until then a pro-American bastion, went into opposition. One symptom of this was its failure to complete five no-bid contracts (that did not include either investment or extraction rights) with oil consortia led by the usual suspects -- Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Total, and Chevron -- designed to increase Iraqi production by 500,000 barrels per day. Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahrastani told the Wall Street Journal that a key reason for the faltering negotiations was the desire of the oil companies for "preferential treatment for future oil-exploration deals." This comment, like the faltering negotiations, hinted at the abandonment of the Bush administration's long-desired version of Iraqi oil policy.

The new attitude was underscored when the Oil Ministry revived a Saddam-era agreement with the China National Petroleum Corporation, which was now granted a $3 billion contract to develop the Ahdab oil field. Given the growing U.S.-China rivalry over the control of foreign oil sources, the symbolism of this act couldn't have been clearer -- especially since the earlier contract had been unceremoniously canceled by the United States at the beginning of the occupation in 2003. No less important, this was a "service contract" whose terms did not follow U.S. guidelines calling for the reduction or elimination of Iraqi government control of the oil industry.

Soon after announcing this new agreement, Oil Minister Shahrastani offered what might be seen as a declaration of oil policy independence. "[Global] oil supplies," he declared, "meet and may slightly exceed current world demand." The world, that is, had plenty of oil, and so there was, he insisted, no global need to rush pell-mell into oil development agreements that might not, in the long run, be of use to Iraq.

This represented an attack on the fundamental premise of U.S. oil policy -- that, as Vice President Cheney told an oil industry gathering back in 1999, "By 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Significantly, back in 2001 -- and before 9/11 -- the Cheney Energy Task Force, working with the National Security Council, would make this commitment the centerpiece of administration Middle Eastern policy, defining the world situation as one in which the supply of oil must be drastically increased to meet the demand for an "additional fifty million barrels a day."

Oil-producing countries of the Middle East never embraced Cheney's analysis and consistently resisted U.S. efforts to encourage, induce, or coerce dramatic increases in oil production. Instead, they viewed the "shortage" of oil as a natural result of market forces, beneficial to their own economies.

With the success of the U.S. invasion, the Iraqi government threatened to become a maverick among the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), endorsing U.S. supported plans that, theoretically, would have quadrupled Iraqi production within 10 years. So Shahrastani's comments were a signal that Iraq was rejoining OPEC's ranks and potentially opening a new era in post-invasion Iraqi politics in which the government he represented would no longer be a reliable ally of the United States.

A Nail in the Coffin of American Defeat?

Implicit in these actions is a new attitude toward, and assessment of, the U.S. presence in Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki and his cohorts appear to have adopted the viewpoint of journalist Nir Rosen that "the Americans are just one more militia," just the most powerful of the rogue forces that they have to manage and eventually eliminate.

As the Iraqi government accumulates an expanding lake of petrodollars and finds ways to shake them loose from the clutches of U.S. banks and U.S. government administrators, its leaders will have the resources to pursue policies that reflect their own goals. The decline in violence, taken in the U.S. as a sign of American "success," has actually accelerated this process. It has made the Maliki regime feel ever less dependent for its survival on the American presence, while strengthening internal and regional forces resistant or antagonistic to Washington's Middle East ambitions.

The respected Iraqi newspaper Azzaman pointed to one of these forces in a recent editorial: "Iran has emerged as the country's top trading partner. Its firms are present in the Kurdish north and southern Iraq carrying out projects worth billions of dollars. Iranian goods are the most conspicuous merchandise in Iraqi shops. Iraq, though occupied and administered by America, has grown to be so dependent on Iran that some analysts see it as a satellite state of Tehran."

To support this contention, Azzaman asserted: "The Ministry of Oil and other key portfolios such the Ministry of Interior and Finance are in the hands of pro-Iran Shiite factions." Citing Oil Ministry sources, it suggested that recent changes in oil policy actually reflected Iranian pressure to "exclude U.S. oil majors from contracts to develop the country's massive oil fields."

Azzaman may be overemphasizing Iranian influence, since there are myriad internal Iraqi influences that continue to press against Washington's desire for a client regime. Parliament, the Sunni and Shia religious leaderships, powerful unions, and the Sunni and Shia insurgencies have all registered broad opposition to continued U.S. presence and influence.

As all this occurs, U.S. leverage over the Iraqi government, though still formidable, is in decline. The Bush administration -- or its soon-to-be elected successor --- may face a difficult dilemma: whether to accept some version of the withdrawal demands of the Iraqi government or re-escalate the war in yet one more attempt to create a government that is "aligned with U.S. interests." The recent declaration by the Pentagon that only the most modest of troop reductions is militarily feasible in the foreseeable future may be a symptom of this dilemma. Without a full complement of U.S. troops, after all, it will be increasingly difficult to convince the Maliki regime to re-embrace policies favored by Washington.

The question remains: Can anything reverse the centripetal forces pulling Iraq from Washington's orbit? Will the President's "surge" strategy prove to have been the nail in the coffin of its hopes for U.S. dominance in the Middle East?

If this turns out to be the case, then watch out domestically. The inevitable controversy over "who lost Iraq" -- an echo of those earlier controversies over "who lost China" and "who lost Vietnam" -- is bound to be on the way.

Michael Schwartz's new book, War Without End: The Iraq Debacle in Context (Haymarket, 2008), will be released later this month. It explains just how the militarized geopolitics of oil led the U.S. to dismantle the Iraqi state and economy while fueling sectarian civil war inside that country. A professor of sociology at Stony Brook State University, Schwartz has written extensively on popular protest and insurgency. His work on Iraq has appeared in numerous outlets, including TomDispatch, Asia Times, Mother Jones, and Contexts. His email address is ms42@optonline.net.

Copyright Michael Schwartz 2008