The chair is labeled, "The Coalition government."

The picture shows a man that looks like Muqtada al-Sadr and

other members of the ruling coalition, sawing the feet out from

under the government and taking them away.

                                                                  [Sotal Iraq, Iraq]

Azzaman, Iraq

U.S. Congress Decides, While

Iraqis Go 'Beep … Beep Beep'

"The vote in Congress to divide Iraq is the final proof that the political process brought about by elections, a new Constitution and this country's leaders has been thrown onto the dung heap."

By Fatih Abdulsalam

Translated By James Jacobson and Nicolas Dagher

September 26, 2007

Iraq - Azzaman - Original Article (Arabic)

The vote in Congress to divide Iraq [the Biden Amendment] is the final proof that the political process brought about by elections, a new Constitution and this country's leaders has been thrown onto the dung heap. It doesn’t matter whether it was binding or not. If Iraq were an independent, sovereign nation, even a country the size of the United States wouldn't dare discuss the details of dividing it.

What would happen if the French National Assembly drew up plans for dividing Morocco, Algiers or Lebanon? Next to me there's an editorial from Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper, saying that Cairo rejects any American intervention in its internal affairs, after Washington demanded speedier trials for independent news editors there.

In Iraq, public officials are glad to vote on dividing their country (isn't it they that are the real enemies?), since they want to ensure their own safety if plans to unite the Iraq fail - assuming of course that they ever really intended to unite the nation.

Congress and the U.S. Administration behave as though Iraq is a country that belongs completely to them - as though it's a good deed for them to use their political capital to deal so dismissively with Iraq [voting to partition the country]. This, after five years of internecine warfare failed to accomplish America's military mission and its hand-picked crew completely failed in its attempt to administer the country. Perhaps America's biggest accomplishment has been the construction of the largest American Embassy in the world, on land where a Republican Palace once stood.

The vote today in Washington is about the division of Iraq … tomorrow's may be about more difficult things, or perhaps easier ones. But whether the issues are difficult or not, we know where the decision will be taken. Things have become clear now … things will be decided during the next vote in Congress, and the controversy over Iraq's sovereignty will be over; it has become clear where Arab states who intend to send ambassadors should present their credentials.

Politicians in Iraq today are left with nothing but their car horns. When their convoys pass through the streets surrounding the Green Zone, their horns are their last vestige of sovereignty to Iraq's afflicted people … it is only by having their cars go, “Beep, beep … beep, beep” that they have the sovereign right to make themselves heard. When the president's convoy passes by … he has the absolute sovereign right to go, “Beep, beep, beep, beep.” And when the cars of the prime minister, cabinet ministers or Deputies pass by … they have the sovereign right to make people listen to them, when their cars go, "Beep, beep, beep, beep.

But the U.S. Congress imposes itself on Iraq's sovereignty without the need for long convoys or "Beep, beep beeps." And if it feels compelled to do so, it will say to those in Baghdad once and for all: "Beep!”  

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