If anyone has managed to find al-Dabbagh’s statement in full, I’ll be happy to add it as Update 3 (not that it would make much difference now, my post is about to fall off the list as it is). I’m actually pretty curious as to wording of al-Dabbagh’s statement.

As to the snark, it was meant in good fun, as you can see from an exchange between Neil and I in the comments above. You know I have the good sense not to go peeing on the carpet here. I’ll try to make it a little more clear in the future when I snark, so as to avoid it being taken in earnest.

By the way, lay off my mojo; I’m sensitive about my mojo deficiency.

And this time, lose the snark. You don’t actually have the mojo here to sneer at Contributors.

At any rate, I have quite a few questions now about exactly what Maliki said, how it was “mistranslated,” at what point the mistranslation took place (Arabic to German or German to English), and what Maliki will be saying in the future.

My tentative hunch is that for Maliki to get reelected, he’s going to have to say things that sound an awful lot like what Obama is saying. With the provincial elections in October, he can’t wait until after the U.S. elections to say these things. At the same time, he doesn’t want to anger the U.S. president (current or future), so he can’t say things that too blatantly support one side or another.

So in conclusion, unless he makes it clear in what way he was “mistranslated,” I assume that he pretty much meant what he said, but he said it for (Iraqi) domestic purposes, not to influence our election. When it hit the U.S. media, he realized that he’d gotten more involved in the U.S. election than he wanted, so he claimed that he was misunderstood. He didn’t want to backtrack on any particular statement, though, because he really does need to say what he said to keep his job.

At any rate, thanks for yesterday’s lively discussion. I’m off to grill some tuna steaks. (God, do I love Sundays!)

Maliki is currently operating under specific UN resolutions and mandates.

In his own words:

“At the moment, they are protected by UN resolutions, American law and the personal commitment of President George W. Bush — and we want this protection to remain in place after the end of UN mandate on Iraq.”

Hitler was elected.

The point is that enemies and potential enemies must fear us. We must retain the deterrence factor we have enhanced by enforcing the cease-fire and we and only we must determine our job is done and interests are secure enough that we think it unlikely we would have to come back and shed more blood.

But all this is academic. Maliki wants and needs us there. The question will be the numbers. I suspect we will be there in medium to large numbers for many years and have a permanent base like in Europe, Korea, etc.

I loke Maliki. He is a hero for freedom and a very brave man. He wouldn’t presume to kick us out. That is just a silly phrase.

It will be interesting to see how Iraq develops over time and to see how different cultural forces shape the country. There are no doubt some pro-western elements in Iraq, and the fact that it will take a western-style government to avoid sectarian violence may make Iraq a shining example for the Muslim world.

However, I for one am not a long term optimist. Turkey had the benefit of a strong home-grown leader who was a genuine secular reformer. It seems to me that Turkey represents the realistic best case scenario. It is worth noting that Islamism is on the rise in Turkey as well, despite an expressly secular legal system.

Prime Minister Maliki is an honestly elected leader of a free country. The people of Iraq speak through him, and if his administration kicks us out, I think we’d want to respect that.

However it then becomes solely the responsibility of the Iraqi people to prevent their country from being a haven for terrorists…

We shed blood there to prevent blood being shed in the lower 48 and just as we didn’t let the earlier right and power guy (Saddam) decide whether we would be or not be in Iraq, neither will we…

you get the point

Prime Minister Maliki embraced nothing about the Obama plan. He borrowed the “16-months,” but he used them in a McCain-like context.

I would now insult the intelligence of those who would argue that Maliki came close to embracing Obama’s plan, but they are doing so themselves.

THINK.

I just hope that he won’t denounce Pres. Bush in his last desperate efforts of pandering to Saddam’s Iraqis.