Here Come the Black Helicopters....

Okay, perhaps not the best headline, given the color of some of the helicopters they're using in Iraq, but....

In the London Guardian today, a columnist hypothesizes that Bremer may be intentionally provoking a confict with the Shiite factions aligned with Moqtada al-Sadr, whose desired future government for Iraq appears to be much more of a theocracy than a democracy. The columnist asks why Bremer would order the crackdown in Shiite newspapers, protests, and order al-Sadr's arrest at this time, and postulates,

Here's one possible answer: Washington has given up on its plans to hand over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30, and is creating the chaos it needs to declare the handover impossible. A continued occupation will be bad news for George Bush on the campaign trail, but not as bad as if the hand-over happens and the country erupts, an increasingly likely scenario given the widespread rejection of the legitimacy of the interim constitution and the US- appointed governing council.

Well, gee... it is a possible answer - it's just rather unlikely. This alone suggests otherwise: If the Bush Administration did intend to delay its ceremonial "handover" of sovereignty, it would stop talking about how the handover will occur as scheduled and start focusing its public statements on the security issues facing Iraq. The Bush Administration, by all appearances, intends to have the "handover" go on as planned - out of concern for the 2004 election, not Iraqi security.

The Washington Post sees this very differently, as a "necessary fight"to put down a radical Shiite militia.

Mr. Sadr, who has a base in the slums of Baghdad, is a young cleric with a considerably smaller following and reputation than other Shiite leaders, like Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf. Precisely for that reason, Mr. Sadr has sought to gain support by adopting a hard line against the occupation and the United States. That the coalition had a prepared but unimplemented strategy for dealing with him was indicated by yesterday's announcement in Baghdad that an Iraqi judge had issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Sadr on murder charges some time ago. An associate was arrested recently, providing a pretext for the assaults on coalition forces.

Perhaps the real problem here is that the plan was bad, its implementation too slow and clumsy (or too cautious out of fear of a Shiite uprising), and it was too easy for as-Sadr to see it coming.

Perhaps Richard Cohen has a point today when he argues that a major flaw of the Bush Administration is the failure of any person in a leadership position to take responsibility for - or even to admit to - a mistake. In fairness to the Bush Administration, that approach has largely worked - since 9/11, the refusal to admit mistakes has helped create a public perception of "leadership" and "confidence". Now there is the possibility of a cascade failure, and the Bush Administration is desperate - not to fix things or take responsibility, but to try to keep things from falling completely apart in advance of the elections.

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