April 2, 2007
NO PAPERCLIPS FOR THE AYATOLLAH:
Shiite cleric rejects proposal to allow Baathists to return to government (Edward Wong, April 2, 2007, International Herald Tribune)
The most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq has rejected an American-backed proposal to allow thousands of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to return to government service, an aide to the cleric said on Monday. [...]But an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the revered, reclusive Shiite cleric, said on Monday that there was a "general feeling of rejection" over the proposal.
At least Truman and company had enough respect for the Germans not to try and make them accept the Nazis we protected. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 2, 2007 3:39 PM
Another self-fulfilling Sunni prophecy.
Posted by: ghostcat at April 2, 2007 4:12 PMTo the losers go the spoils? I think not.
The real interesting question is why this obvious non-starter policy is one of the "benchmarks" that we're hearing about so much these days. One would think that whoever is writing a list that includes re-Baathification WANTS the Iraqis to fail and the US to leave.
If the mullahs aren't running the show in Iran (or are massively weakened) when we leave Iraq, things might not turn out as bad as they could. Making it critical that we use the British sailor kidnapping as a causus belli...
Posted by: b at April 2, 2007 6:23 PM