Will there be a Bush-sponsored coup in Iraq?

[BurtWorm]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/06/coup_in_iraq.php

Coup In Iraq?
Robert Dreyfuss
October 06, 2006



Robert Dreyfuss is an Alexandria, Va.-based writer specializing in politics and national security issues. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005), a contributing editor at The Nation, and a writer for Mother Jones , The American Prospect and Rolling Stone. He can be reached through his website, www.robertdreyfuss.com.

Is the Bush administration considering a coup d’etat in Iraq before the end of the year, in a desperate effort to salvage its war? It’s not outside the realm of possibility. Like JFK in 1963, who—faced with a notoriously corrupt Saigon regime and a growing Viet Cong insurgency in Vietnam—gave the green light to topple and assassinate President Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam, President Bush might give a wink and a nod to the CIA, the U.S. military, and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to get rid of Iraq’s current regime. The Diem coup didn’t go well. Considering how unlikely it is that Bush has even heard of Diem, I doubt he’s learned that lesson.

More and more, it’s beginning to look like the end for Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. When he took office in the spring, Maliki was touted by the Bush administration as Iraq’s savior. In fact, behind the scenes, the Midland Machiavellis in the White House and their proconsul in Iraq, Ambassador Khalilzad, wheedled and maneuvered Iraq’s corrupt political class into giving Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari the heave-ho and installing Maliki in his place. Like the other too-clever-by-half stratagems of the Bush people in Iraq, the installation of Maliki created more problems than it solved, and it now looks like Maliki has utterly lost the confidence of the White House.

Question is, what are they going to replace him with—and when? According to recent reports, the United States appears to have given Maliki a deadline: two months.

[onenote]

1. I would seriously doubt it

If Maliki is taken out in a non-democratic coup, it completely undercuts the administration's claim that democracy is taking root. It feeds directly into the notion that the country is in civil war. In other words, it would force chimpy to admit that the war is being lost. He ain't gonna do that, in case you haven't noticed.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. They'd just orchestrate it to make Maliki a martyr to democracy,

then install the next puppet in a spur of the moment referendum (no worry about their chain of succession - they still just trying things out so if they skip a few steps it just their democracy evolving).

[onenote]

5. nope. wouldn't come close to working

If there is a coup, the story will be that democracy has failed, that neither the US military nor the Iraqi military can protect the democratically elected government, and that the country is in civil war. No question about it. If there is one person that chimpy needs to stay safe in Iraq, its Maliki. Otherwise, everything he claims is undermined.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. But you know the spin would be that Democracy Worked! after

the unfortunate assassination of their president, the iraqi people went to the polls and peacefully elected a new leader, and they have the purple thumbs to prove it.

They make their own reality, remember?

[aquart]

7. Yeah, because they're so beautifully in control.

And because if they want something to happen, it happens.

And because brown people can't ever manage to do anything themselves without white people doing the thinking. Right? How unbelievably racist is it to assume any political coup will be an American plot?

Hey, Iraq used to be Babylonia. When a king came to the throne, he murdered his brothers, every one. They know how to seize power and hold it cruelly over there. We just forgot that detail.

[atreides1]

6. You're kidding right?

"it completely undercuts the administration's claim that democracy is taking root."

I don't think the administration really cares, besides it's already well known that this so called democracy is basically a sham.

"it would force chimpy to admit that the war is being lost"

When has this man admitted to anything, you could feed him a shit sandwich and he would insist that it's the best PBJ he's ever had.

No one has been able to force him to do anything, and that includes living with reality, as Olberman pointed out Bush lives in his own little world, not the one that the rest of us happen to inhabit.

Besides there wasn't a whole lot of crying and gnashing of teeth when the US helped to take down Diem, and the coup didn't seem to upset the populace too much.

What gets me is people keep insisting that Bush won't do this or he won't do that, and yet he has. Let's just admit that this man is capable of any evil deed that is listed and some that even Satan
finds deplorable, and quit trying to insist that he' won't do something.

The best thing is to wait and see what he does.

[onenote]

9. okay, let's wait and see what he does.

works for me.

I should add that the only scenario in which I envision a US orchestrated coup to take out Maliki would be one whose purpose was to give the repubs an excuse to say that the situation is so out of hand that withdrawal of our forces should begin...

[BurtWorm]

20. After the midterms, all the pressure to elect Republicans is off.

See how they act when there's pressure to elect Republicans, anyway? They don't give a shit. They'll do whatever they feel like doing and claim it's what they've been doing all along.

[damntexdem]

2. Will there be a Bush-sponsored coup in America?

Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Brazil, Bolivia, Spain, Italy, .................................

[dkofos]

17. THAT HAPPENED IN 2000

[Solly Mack]

3. wasn't there already? just saying...

if he replaced one...who is to stop him from replacing another?

[uppityperson]

10. Wasn't there already?

Or was that all just a bad dream?

[BurtWorm]

11. Make that anOTHER Bush-sponsored coup.

:patriot:

[uppityperson]

12. Do you mean they would coup the gvt they already installed?

I am confused.

[BurtWorm]

14. Yes.

They could pull a Diem on Maliki.

[uppityperson]

15. USA invades Iraq, arrests Saddam, places stooge in power, runs elections

then deposes via coup all of that? While setting up civil war? hmm. I can see wanting to keep region destablized, and stay in power, but seems a bit of a stretch.

[BurtWorm]

16. Deposes via coup because puppet democracy can't stand up on its own.

An outright Saddam-style fascist is just what the Doctor ordered to clean up the mess.

[uppityperson]

18. Got it, try try again?

Interesting theory, it is always possible.

[Disturbed]

13. The features of a parliamentary system

The features of a parliamentary system

The executive is typically a cabinet, and headed by a prime minister who is considered the head of government, but parliamentarism has also been practised with privy councils. The prime minister and the ministers of the cabinet typically have their background in the parliament and may remain members thereof while serving in cabinet. The leader of the leading party, or group of parties, in the parliament is often appointed as the prime minister.

In many countries, the cabinet, or single members thereof, can be removed by the parliament through a vote of no confidence. In addition, the executive can often dissolve the parliament and call extra-ordinary elections. Under the parliamentary system the roles of head of state and head of government are more or less separated.

In most parliamentary systems, the head of state is primarily a ceremonial position, often a monarch or president, retaining duties that aren't politically divisive, such as appointments of civil service. In many parliamentary systems, the head of state may have reserve powers which are usable in a crisis. In most cases however, such powers are (either by convention or by constitutional rule) only exercised upon the advice and approval of the head of government.

http://fixedreference.org/2006-Wikipedia-CD-Selection/wp/p/Parliamentary_system.htm

[dkofos]

19. With Kissinger at the helm of another sinking ship,

anything is possible.