The latest game in Iraq these days appears to be 'Where's Saddam?' The Ba'ath government is in collapse.. the leaders scarpered, leaving their homes and palaces to be looted by the rampaging mobs.. brings Versailles to mind somehow..
What this has left is a vast power vacuum.. one which the coalition troops are not prepared.. not equipped to deal with..
Homes, hospitals, factories, all sacked in the aftermath of the civil breakdown.. and where's a cop when you need one?
This is going to take months to straighten out.
The humanitarian distribution.. the re-establishment of a central government and it's provincial infrastructure.. the preparation of the Iraqi man on the street for the responsibility of choosing a government.. the learning process which all will undergo, once the concept of 'freedom' dawns on them..
This will not be a colonial situation.. certainly an economic binding with the west, but certainly not to the disadvantage of the average Iraqi..
That, at least, is the plan.
Yet already we see the murder of a Shia Cleric in Najaf.. infighting between the various Shi'ite factions..
We've had lawyers arguing for centuries, refining our particular forms of democracy..
Iraq's bound to be the Wild East for a while..