Instead, what Bush policymakers -- primarily former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the neo-conservatives he so fatefully empowered -- gave the Iraqi people was a Rube Goldberg facade of a democratic constitution imposed upon a society that Bush policies had thrown into chaos and then left there.

This guaranteed not the establishment of a stable democratic functioning political system but precisely its opposite. The Iraqi people and their political factions (none of them can be called "parties" in any Western democratic sense) are now trapped in a system that guarantees division, factionalism and powerlessness.

As we have steadily monitored in these columns over the past 18 months, the moment when Iraq collapsed into full-scale sectarian conflict between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds and thus passed the real "point of no return" was precisely the moment the neo-con pundits and advocates of instant democracy across the Middle East praised as their greatest triumph -- the holding of general elections for a new parliament late in 2005.

Those elections, it will be recalled, were supposed to drain the popular Sunni community support from the various insurgent groups operating within it. Instead they did precisely the opposite. Support for the Sunni insurgents became more widespread than ever and then the Shiite community reacted by rallying around its own militias.

The new Iraqi ministries and security forces that were being proudly created with great fanfare at the time were thus from the very beginning riddled with members and agents whose primary loyalty was to the militias, especially the Shiite ones. And most of the remaining Iraqi police and army members who were not directly affiliated with any of these groups realized the folly of trying to defy or ignore those who were.

As a result, as we have repeatedly pointed out in these columns, and as U.S. National Intelligence Estimates now belatedly confirm, the quality of institution-building in the Iraqi government and armed forces remains dismal.

It is not hard to relatively and rapidly create large cadres of Iraqi police and troops who look good on paper and who can carry out military exercises competently and thus impress inexperienced visiting congressmen. But so far, the reliability of these forces when forced to go up against determined militias remains dismal.

Meanwhile, as we have also repeatedly noted, the Iraqi government remains a national government in name only. The fault is not that of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is performing as well as anybody could, and better than most would, in his impossible position. Blame should be laid on the very people who now so eagerly criticize the Iraqis for bungling "the gift of freedom" that was supposedly handed to them.

As a result, the continued efforts by the U.S. government and its top military and diplomatic officials in the Middle East to pressure Maliki to finally push through measures of genuine compromise with the Sunni community reflects a continued failure to understand political realities.

For Maliki does not lead a national government: His government is dependent for support in the Iraqi parliament on sectarian factions that would topple him if he heeded the U.S. pressure and passed the very measures, especially on sharing oil revenues with the Sunnis, that Washington demands.

But even if Maliki were somehow to be able to pass those measures, he is in no position to ensure their implementation. Security in his own ministries is minimal and the Iraqi armed forces cannot guarantee it. And even if, by some miracle, revenue-sharing could be fairly and effectively implemented, it appears too late to make a difference. The factional nature of Iraqi society is firmly set.

earlier related report
US lawmaker raps Europe on security
Washington (AFP) June 14 - Veteran US lawmaker Tom Lantos Thursday complained young Americans were dying to defend freedom while Europe's youngsters "stroll the avenues" in prosperous Paris and Bonn.

Lantos, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee, admitted that the United States shared some of the blame for the "tattered" state of the transatlantic relationship.

But he said that Europe, while enjoying a post-war "umbrella" of protection provided by the United States, had failed to do the "heavy lifting" to safeguard its own security.

Lantos also implored Europe to recognize what he said were mounting threats from Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and lambasted the "hollow" output from last week's G8 summit.

He argued at a hearing of his committee that the transatlantic relationship had fallen into disrepair because it lacked the organizing principle provided by the common threat from the Soviet Union.

"Now, without that unifying force, the transatlantic alliance has become tattered -- like a flag that has weathered one too many hurricanes," said Lantos, a Holocaust survivor who battled the Nazis and communism in his native Hungary.

"The United States is partly to blame, with our my-way-or-the-highway approach but the Europeans are also at fault because often they leave us doing the heavy lifting."

"Young men and women from New York and San Francisco and Ames, Iowa are daily giving their lives in defense of freedom while their counterparts in Bonn and Paris stroll the avenues, admiring Europe's great prosperity."

Lantos argued that Europe's wealth and security were a direct result of American protection after World War II.

"But instead of doing their part to keep this umbrella upright, Europe continues to rely on our shelter. The military spending of all of its countries combined is dwarfed by US military spending."

"If French and German soldiers aren't willing to serve on the frontlines, Afghanistan could devolve once again into a state-sponsored launching pad for terror."

He also condemned the output from last week's G8 summit in Germany, saying it was the latest of a string of missed opportunities to get the relationship back on track.

US concerns had led to a watering down of the content on global warming and he said the attempt to censure a "horrendous" Iranian regime over its nuclear program was diluted beyond recognition.

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