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Irak: Fred og ingen fare
Faktisk er der nu så fredeligt, at premierminister Nuri al-Maliki kan gå frit rundt i Bagdads gader.
Eller, forleden gik han i hvert fald rundt i byens gader - vistnok i helt op til en halv time, og kun ledsaget af en enkelt livvagt eller to (billedet).
Og så forlyder det, at punditokraternes Mr. Law har meldt sig som frivillig til at tage ned i Bagdad og ligesom foregå andre med et godt eksempel, gå frejdigt rundt i gaderne og vise os andre, hvor sikkert det er - strø roser ud foran bomberne, og sådan. Eller noget.
Nyheden er via Abu Aardvark, hvor Malikis lille gåtur i hovedstadens gader beskrives sådan her:
Yesterday, Maliki took a John McCain vintage victory tour of Baghdad to push his message of victory. In what all news accounts describe as a rare appearance in the streets of the capital city, Maliki ventured out for a full half-hour, ringed by heavily armed security while the entire neighborhood was sealed off.Men om ikke andet, så har det da en vis symbolsk effekt - og så kan det bruges til at overbevise "rette vedkommende" i Vesten om, at alting måske alligevel ikke står så blodigt galt til, som alt tyder på, at det gør?He declared victory over the "terrorist organizations and militias": "we have achieved victory against terrorist groups and militias. Things will not return to the way they were." Because nothing says "life has returned to normal" better than a heavily armed security detail and a totally sealed off neighborhood.
But here's something interesting. Virtually all the photos which I saw running in Arab and Iraqi sites showed the security detail. But look at these photos, all from Reuters:
If you saw those pictures, you wouldn't know about the heavy security detail or the shut-down neighborhood, would you? In fact, not a single photo which showed up on the Yahoo news photos archive when I accessed it this morning showed the security detail. Give the man some credit - between the "bottom-up reconciliation" gambit and the "market stroll" photo op, he's clearly learning the American media politics game. Who said we can't export that stuff?
