Monday, November 5, 2007

A Colossal Dominatrix

Ooh! Phooey, it's just Juan Cole writing about how the proper thing to do with the US embassy in Baghdad is to close it.

Bush is dragooning these career diplomats into dodging bombs and bullets, which is not their job. He is trying to create them as a shadow colonial administration of Iraq (my em), which is not their job. The US embassy in Beirut was closed during the Lebanese Civil War. There is still no US embassy in Tehran. Tehran is a hell of a lot safer than Baghdad. Keeping the US embassy in Baghdad open is a political and military decision on Bush's part, which flies in the face of precedent and good sense.

Those who want to see the Iraq War ended should join this campaign. The war won't be ended as long as Bush's Baghdad embassy, a behemoth unprecedented in size and scope, bestrides Iraq like a colossal dominatrix.

And here is how closing the embassy works for the anti-war movement and for the Democratic Party (and anti-war Republicans). The public just won't mind. If you cut off money to the troops, they will mind. Only a plurality of Americans wants all troops out now, immediately. And if the Dems embargoed the military budget, the hawks would run on the their having sent our boys off to duel "al-Qaeda" with "spitballs" (a la Zell Miller). But the Republican hawks, having spent decades tearing down the State Department, will be helpless before a measure that closes down the US embassy in Baghdad. It is quite delicious.

I suggest that step one in the process is to send in some building inspectors to declare it unfit fir human habitation and red tag it.

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