Victory for Democracy?

This scene makes me queasy.

President Bush et. all keep telling us that democracy is messy, but Iraq is not a democracy and by all accounts, this was not messy. The protest in Najaf was remarkably well-orchestrated by Moqtada al-Sadr’s thugs, but the sheer size of the crowd should be quite enough to convince anyone that this wasn’t simply the pathetic machination of a few unemployed Shiite Kalashnikov-toters. The people of Iraq want us out.

I’m convinced that this wasn’t a just a hopeless exercise in (pure) hubris from the start. There was – and is – something to the neocons’ assertion that the reactionary thugocracies of the Middle East are primarily responsible for the stultifying life that the Muslim oil states are able to provide for their citizens; and the tiny successes that the “surge” has garnered so far suggest that if Shinseki had been listened to in the beginning, Iraq wouldn’t be the jungle of chaotic backstabbing that it’s become. Another mistake – permitting al-Sadr to run free. And now what do we do with him? The New York Times reports:

Mr. Sadr used the protest to try to reassert his image as a nationalist rebel who appeals to both anti-American Shiites and Sunni Arabs. He established that reputation in 2004, when he publicly supported Sunni insurgents in Falluja who were battling United States marines, and quickly gained popularity among Sunnis across Iraq and the region. But his nationalist credentials have been tarnished in the last year, as Sunni Arabs have accused Mr. Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army, of torturing and killing Sunnis.

If you pull out one grey hair, three more grow in its place – this is the War on Terror lesson that we never learn, because there’s just no solution to the problem. If he can regain control of the Mahdi Army, maybe he can be dealt with. Killing, exiling, or otherwise eliminating him now will free the pit vipers of the master that kept them (loosely) together. Unleash that nightmare, and you just might need another surge to walk through the streets of Baghdad surrounded by Special Ops.