There's an allegory waiting to happen when officials named "Rice" and "Straw" are dispatched Iraq to douse the ongoing fires, especially if their mere appearance amounts to spraying gasoline on the flames. Iraqi politicians say their arrival has only hardened opposition and proven immensely counterproductive. Epictetus will leave it to the modern satirists (Christopher Buckley, maybe…?) to write the definitive, skewering account that seems tailor-made for Swift or Waugh or maybe Voltaire.
Funny how a Joe Klein could spin gold from the chaff of one incorrigible horn-dog's misadventures and triangulations, but there's no one willing–or perhaps able–to take apart these guys for such arrogantly public acts of immorality perpetrated on the public they were elected to serve. On the other hand, maybe it's that unapologetic transparency that makes them unripe subjects for satire. Someone recently said satirists actually have to like the targets of their poison pens–have to be won over by their foibles and personalities. Fact is, the Cheney/Bush crowd is just plain unlikable, and their foibles are not recognizably human. Perhaps, then, their story is better left for telling in a war crimes court?
Until then, if you really want to keep breast of actual events in Iraq, Epictetus highly recommends the writings of Juan Cole. His Informed Comment site, and the pieces he occasionally does for Salon, succinctly and clearly depicts the situation. And "informed" is the key word here: As a professor of history at the University of Michigan, he brings a supple and comprehensive knowledge of how the past will always dictate the future in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Also note his dismantling of the Kerry plan for withdrawl: "Kerry," he notes dryly, "seems to be under the impression the U.S. is fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, which is generally not true."
Cole does not need to note the machinations, dissemblings, and deceit on the part of the administration that might have forced Kerry to inhabit such a position. "So what are YOU going to do?" is their only response to the legitimate questioning of its decision to invade Iraq in the first place. Come to think of it, there's a bit of "Animal Farm" to this whole thing already–and with helpful, illustrative names like "Dick," "Bush," and "Rove" in abundant supply, along with a daily unscrolling of developments you just couldn't make up, someone of talent could surely turn out a biting, incisive, and definitive account to last for the ages. Right?
