Why precisely do I

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Why precisely do I read Andrew Sullivan’s website? I’m not sure. Much of the stuff I find either wrongheaded or offensive or stridently badgering toward people who don’t deserve badgering. And yet I read it. In fact, it’s one of the only blogs I read regularly or even read at all. Tonight or this morning — take your pick — I noticed his post on the prison amnesty in Iraq. And I think Andrew’s on to something. Clearly, this amnesty has been promulgated for the most cynical of reasons, for a mix of domestic and foreign propaganda. But this is the most repressive of regimes. And repressive regimes tend to function like ratchets. To survive they can stand in place or become more repressive. But it’s very difficult for them to become less so. Reeling back political repression is a tough, often an impossible, proposition, as we saw in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union a dozen or more years ago. And there’s some small chance we could be beginning to see the first signs of something like that in Iraq. What’s happening right now — and the way a few are interpreting it — reminds me of something I was once told by the guy I regard as one of the shrewdest and most knowledgeable people in Washington when it comes to Iraq and US policy thereto. I can’t say who it is other than to say he’s ex-military. But here’s the way he once described the Iraqi regime to me: “The physical analogy to Saddam Hussein’s regime is a steel beam in compression. This is an extremely repressive regime. Even to say those words doesn’t do it justice. When it breaks … it’ll give off absolutely no sign at all that it’s about to fail … And then ka-wammo! And it just goes crazy. That what’s gonna happen here.” That really could happen here, and possibly, just possibly, without a single American shot ever being fired.

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