shooting feet

the new york times has an article today about how the delays and split on iraq council imperil u.s. plan to transfer power to iraqis by june 30, 2004. the plan requires the council draft an interim constitution by february 28th which would then be followed by a process in which the u.s. military would indirectly pick the "civilian iraqi" leadership in a sham the media has obediently been referring to as a "caucus." (any relation between the "caucus " in iraq and, say, the iowa caucus–where ordinary iowans are permitted to participate–is purely coincidental). after the new government is sworn in, the u.s. occupying authorities would then pretend to hand the keys to "elected iraqi representatives" who had been "elected" by a majority of people hand-picked by the occupational authorities. the process is designed to be complex enough and involving something that looks a little like voting to allow the bush administration to call the appointees "democratically elected" and claim that they have created the first arab democracy this summer, just in time for the u.s. election.

but as the times article notes, the plan is becoming less and less likely to succeed. in part this is because the shiites have disrupted bush’s plans for drafting the interim constitution by calling for an actual democratic vote. you’d think that the administration that now (after it’s two prior justifications have failed to be supported by any evidence) claims that it invaded iraq to bring democracy to the country, would be on board with the shiites on this issue. but a direct vote would almost certainly produce a shiite leader in iraq, a fact that would make one country that bush does not like happy (iran) and others that bush really likes unhappy (saudi arabia, kuwait and the other oil-rich gulf states). plus, a real democratic election would take longer, which means that if the u.s. would allow a direct vote, there would be no transfer of power until probably after November, which interferes with mr. rove’s theme for bush’s reelection campaign.

but the times article notes a second reason that the council may not finish drafting the interim constitution by the end of february:

The drafting committee has also not formally met in the last few weeks because several members, including [Adnan] Pachachi, have been traveling abroad.

pachachi, as well as 3 other members of the committee, traveled to washington last week so that they could be pointed out by the president during his state of the union address as they sat in the audience.

so it occurs to me that bush might be shooting himself in the foot on this issue. he has set out a timetable to transfer power on june 30th, perfectly timed to help him in his reelection campaign. however, bush unofficially kicked off his reelection campaign by the SOTU speech and the victory in iraq theme needed some good props. but by bringing his IGC puppets to washington, he doesn’t have them pushing his agenda this week in baghdad. which increases the chances of making any sort of showy transfer of power by june 30th.