Iraq clusterfuck: So, Casey Sheehan died for an Islamic theocracy, and/or civil war

Yes, that's the "noble cause."

Finally, the Reagan Revolutionaries are eating their own. Took long enough. But even the wing-nuts are getting the idea that the best outcome is an Islamic theocracy, and the worst outcome is Islamic theocracy plus civil war. And, even more interesting, it seems like withdrawal by 2006 is becoming part of the CW.

I type this in from a copy of today's Wall Street Journal that I found on the train. Under the delightfully deadpan headline, Iraqi Charter Causes Alarm, we read:

As the Bush administration's Iraq strategery enters a crucial period that is meant to culminate in two elections and set the stage for a military withdrawal [Gasp!], the White House's public relations push [Who knew?] is being complicated by the surprising anger the constiution is sparking among Republicans and others normally supportive of Bush. The critics have expressed alarm about the provisions concerning women's rights, the role of Islam in Iraq daily life and the deference accorded to Shiite clerics with close religious and cultural ties to neighboring Iran.

The Bush administration now has few options for changing the document... Bush even took the unusual step of telephoning a top Shiite leader to ask for concessions to win Sunni support for the charter, but the Shiite cleric, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, said no.

That means the White House faces the growing possibility of seeing domestic political support for the Iraq venture evaporate as Americans conclude that the constiution enshrines religious strictures inimical to US ideals and strident ethnic separatism with the potential to break the country apart through civil war.

Hate to say, I told you so...

Nathan Brown, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has followed Iraq's consitutional deliberations, said Iraq increasingly resembles Lebanon shortly before the country descended into a decades-long Civil War.

Of course, the real problem half these guys are having here is that Iraq is going to become the wrong kind of theocracy....