Oh, spare me your legal mumbo jumbo. Legal? You supported (and now you try like Thomas Friedman to weasel out of that position) an illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign country and you talk to me about legality? The country is under foreign occupation, and you offer me a legal opinion? And what about the sectarian militias (like Badr, and the Anbar militias)? How do they fit into your Weberian definitions? (Oh, and I will be blogging this week about that new lousy book of yours. So stay tuned.) "From a strictly legal standpoint, the government’s decision is unobjectionable. As a militia, the Mahdi Army is unlawful." And you dare say: "Americans’ parochial love of the hustings (whatever they are) has been evident in Iraq almost from the beginning, urged along by the drama of the raised purple fingers and the Bush administration’s recurring need to show tangible markers of progress." Are you kidding me? Where is this American love for voting and elections manifested? In Saudi Arabia or Oman or Egypt or Jordan or UAE? And let us not fool our readers, the US wanted unelected caucases and not free elections. They were forced to hold elections against their will by that medieval Grand (not at all) Ayatullah of Chess.