Incentivising Political Engagement

The independent, sovereign government of Iraq - the one that rules Baghdad with the help of a hundred thousand foreign fighters - has announced that a "major operation" has begun to kick-start the political process in the northern town of Talafar.

The Americans, who have proven so reliable in the past about such things as weapons of mass destruction and illegal imports of uranium, have informed the independent, sovereign Iraqi government that "the town is being used as a staging post by foreign fighters crossing into Iraq from Syria". Accordingly, US forces have been bombing the place, doubtless upon the orders of the independent, sovereign Iraqi prime minister, who has said that "insurgents and foreign fighters had been actively destroying life in the town", as US air strikes manifestly do not.

The air strikes were launched against a neighbourhood which "the Americans suspected of being under the control of insurgents", and once they were done, all males over the age of twenty who remained in one piece were arrested. The US military, with the consent of the independent, sovereign Iraqi government of course, "drove the insurgents out of Talafar a year ago, only for them to return once the troops had withdrawn"; doubtless they missed out either the air strikes or the arrests, since these tactics are self-evidently going to prove effective this time.

In a strange, wholly coincidental echo of US hurricane evacuation policy, the authorities have "urged residents to leave". The BBC's Jon Brain, who is not in Talafar but half-way down the country in Baghdad, says that "80% of the town's inhabitants, who are mainly Sunni Muslims, are now believed to have left Talafar". Jon Brain does not say who believes this. The uncharitable might suspect that this is because said believer is, like Jon Brain, in Baghdad and not in Talafar. Assuming the belief is correct, one can only hope the Americans have not thought to put a cordon round the town, as the presence of a hundred and sixty thousand refugees might complicate the operation somewhat.

But nowadays, of course, it isn't the Americans who are running things. The independent, sovereign Iraqi government has sent in its very own, Iraqi forces, "operating with support from the Multi-National Force". That will make all the difference.