U.S. military: Iraqi lawmaker is U.S. Embassy bomber

From CNN courtesy of Eschaton:

A man sentenced to death in Kuwait for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies now sits in Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition, according to U.S. military intelligence.

Jamal Jafaar Mohammed's seat in parliament gives him immunity from prosecution. Washington says he supports Shiite insurgents and acts as an Iranian agent in Iraq.

U.S. military intelligence in Iraq has approached al-Maliki's government with the allegations against Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, whom it says assists Iranian special forces in Iraq as "a conduit for weapons and political influence."

Click here for the rest.

So I've been saying for some months now that hopes for US success in Iraq are at best bleak, by and large, because of extreme corruption in the government there we created. Of course, much of that corruption is garden variety graft and fraud. You know, pocketing thousands of dollars meant for reconstruction. But this guy in the CNN article represents the more sinister kind: the Iraqi government is swarming with insurgents, or at least, their supporters. And my bet is that most of them aren't as high-profile as Mohammed, occupying, as he does, a seat in parliament: most of them are petty officials, policemen, and soldiers, you know, the people who actually make things function on a day-to-day basis. The obvious conclusion here is that the US simply cannot get the results it says it desires with the Iraqi government currently in place.

In other words, stability is impossible, and we're on a fool's errand trying to make it happen.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$