Bush Administration Still Perplexed By Tendency Of Iraqis To Be Human Beings

There's lots of bitter merriment to be found in the recent Iraq memo by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley that was leaked to the NY Times. But this is my favorite part:

[Prime Minister Maliki] impressed me as a leader who wanted to be strong but was having difficulty figuring out how to do so. Maliki pointed to incidents, such as the use of Iraqi forces in Shia Karbala, to demonstrate his even hand. Perhaps because he is frustrated over his limited ability to command Iraqi forces against terrorists and insurgents, Maliki has been trying to show strength by standing up to the coalition. Hence the public spats with us over benchmarks and the Sadr City roadblocks...

(We want Maliki to exert his authority — and demonstrate to Iraqis that he is a strong leader — by taking action against extremists, not by pushing back on the United States and the Coalition.)

Let's see...the number of times in human history a government official has been popular and viewed as strong by his countrymen when he collaborates with and is propped up by a foreign occupation is...wait, let me get out my calculator here...uh, that number would be...zero.

Fortunately, it will happen in Iraq for the time ever because "we want" it to.

''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."