Bush thinking of 'replacing' Iraqi government? [VIDEO]

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 7:53 AM on October 16, 2006.

Democracy has long been derided by some of its most loyal adherents. Churchill said that "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others," while Woody Allen said something to the effect that "I believe in completely open and honest Democracy... but also think the American system can work."

Bush's Midas touch has turned Democracy into a sort of fundamentalism -- a stand-in for whatever is in the Bush admin's best interest.

So now that the Iraqi government is grower further and further from the Bush administration, in response to the needs of its actual constituency, it looks like the administration may be looking into changing the regime it installed to change the Saddam regime.

"Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in an interview with USA TODAY that his government will not force militias to disarm until later this year or early next year, despite escalating violence in Baghdad fueled by death squads and religious warfare."

Al-Maliki, who depends on the support of some of these militias, has a different approach: "Terrorism and militias — especially militias — cannot be dealt with only by using tanks, guns and aircraft."

Nearly 80% of Iraqis believe that US presence fuels the insurgency and 60% support attacks on the troops.

So a reluctance to force militias to disarm at the behest of the U.S. government doesn't appear to be the democratic thing to do.

And lo, in the clip to the upper right, David Brooks seems to hear some interesting buzz from the White House about how to deal with Democracies that don't listen to it...

Tagged as: iraq, democracy, al-maliki

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.