1115.org

Ironic that the Iraqi Defense Minister’s deepest conviction about his job is that he can’t do it.

The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018.

I do now wonder what the Iraqi Health Minister thinks about the prospects of keeping Iraqis healthy (in addition to wealthy and wise). For that matter, maybe the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Trade has deep-seated existential doubts about the wealth angle too?

Maybe all their ministries are oxymorons, by definition, named for what they cannot do? The Prime Minister certainly has proved incapable of priming the reunification process that was once upon a time judged necessary for progress in Iraq. (I’m so glad they don’t have a Ministry of Morality; I’d hate to think of them as a hopelessly immoral country.)

I imagine that Iraqis regard other political phrases as oxymorons too. Effective government, for example. Political stability.

Maybe American intelligence, too? (In the U.S. it may be a national disgrace — especially when the Doubting-Thomas-in-chief goes about declaring that he doesn’t really believe the intelligence community’s consensus opinion, because they’re only the professionals, what do they know? — but in Iraq, “American intelligence” is a political phrase.)