The Bush administration — which has displayed only intermittent interest in Iraq’s political stalemates — will have to press a lot harder to make sure that all these new laws are translated into action.
The Bush administration has displayed only intermittent interest in the political stalemate? Are they serious? When the Times has complained of nothing else but the stalemate? Gee. So the Bush administration can't just order around a sovereign and free Iraqi government?
Isn't this really the whole point of liberating Iraq? We can ask the freely elected Iraqi government. We can cajole them and remind them that their foes in our country have wet dreams over further political stalemate in Baghdad. But no, you beNYTed chowderheads, President Bush can't just instruct them to do something. Hell, he can't do that with a quarter of his own departments given the entrenched bureaucracies that oppose him.
Ultimately the Iraqis have to decide. The idea that the administration has only been intermittently interested in the political process in Iraq is ludicrous. But the implication by the Times editors that we should just tell them what to do is insulting.
Divided government is a feature and not a bug. Iraq could use a little more of checks and balances rather than central power. And that this division of power is still in place despite a brutal war against killers sent by Iran and Syria is fairly impressive.
And if the Bush administration did order Maliki about like a junior assistant undersecretary, I'm sure that the Times would opine against that, too. If the Times editorial board had any clue whatsoever ...
