Others may have made something like this point (I confess to laziness and not reading the 180+ prior comments):

Given all the semaphoring lately showing that the Bush regime wants to be done with Maliki, plus that of many Democrats indicating that they remain true to their class and continue to stand behind the occupation, I suspect this is a possible script in play:

Maliki is forced out - willingly or unwillingly - and Allawi is installed. This will not be before the 9/11 Anniversary General Petraeus Report Affirming Some Military Success, but some time afterward. And yet it will happen before there is time for anything pretending to be a debate on the war and occupation could possibly come to a resolution.

Then, Allawi is installed, and the new argument will be that a new Iraqi government must be given time to make progress. US forces can't possibly be withdrawn while a new government is just finding its feet. Etc., Etc. This will eat up many months of 2008 at least. And then, well, it will be campaign season, so everyone will have the excuse to do nothing until 2009.

Many things could disrupt this scenario, of course, but the cynicism and opportunism it implies is entirely in keeping with the Bush regime and its Loyal Opposition enablers.

It's worth remembering that Allawi is a CIA asset/tool, and while he was being run as a CIA agent in Baghdad in the 1980s (I think) he was the first to introduce the Iraqi people to the car bomb.

Mr. O'Hehir,

Thank you for your essay reviewing Eastern Promises, where you write,

I often think about David Lynch when I think about David Cronenberg, and vice versa. These two cult heroes are so dissimilar in so many ways, yet they attract similar audiences and draw their water, so to speak, from the same deep wells. Both are informed simultaneously by classic genre movies and by European art film. Both draw on the subconscious in their movies, both are attracted to the grotesque at least as much as the sublime. (You could say that both find each element in the other one.)

Cronenberg and Lynch are filmmakers I admire enormously. Your perception of them as being subliminally linked fellow travelers exploring a similar artistic landscape was an illuminating new perspective for me. Just recently I saw Inland Empire (a wonderful, beautiful, uncomfortable film). Your review of Eastern Promises propelled me to see A History of Violence; though I've had a copy for several weeks I hadn't yet made time to watch it. Thanks to the ideas raised in your article, a very rich dimension was added to my experience and enjoyment of History, and I now look forward to re-viewing all the Lynch and Cronenberg films I am fortunate to have in my collection. (And, of course, eagerly wait for Eastern Promises to be available!)

Again, thank you for showing me something new in the work of two of my favorite artists.

Dan Collins' preciously elided Faggot, along with the requisite re-statement of the terrible threat of Islam, actually hang together quite well in the Rightist mindset. Historically, there was always a faction of the Right wing that hated and feared Islam and/or Arabs/Muslims, and a faction that hated and feared homosexuality and LGBT people (as was there also always some overlap of these two factions). Before the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the evolution of the People's Republic of China into a state capitalist regime, the Right wing was overwhelmingly focused on Communism as The Great Enemy. It's useful to recall the hand-wringing that accompanied that loss. Significant portions of the Right have found that fear of Islam and of homosexuality are dandy replacements.

The Right's obsession with the Manly Virtue of the Virile Warrior seems incomplete without their delusional fear of homosexuality, particularly of gay men. While they affect to despise us, they also seem to believe that we are uniquely powerful. It seems we're able to 'recruit' hapless heterosexuals, to precipitate the collapse of straight marriages and families simply by living openly, and somehow to fatally subvert said Manly, Virtuous, Virile Warriors as they wage their Generational Struggle Against the Enemy. (I have, in truth, often wished I did have such magical power; it could solve so many problems...)

During the early post-Stonewall period, in the last years of the war against Vietnam, there were relatively few out lesbians and gay men playing leading roles on the Left. It's enormously gratifying that some 35-40 years later our presence and contribution is no longer such a novelty. This visibility is part of what stimulates that bigot itch afflicting the Right. As their various projects precipitate inevitable disasters, to the extent they are frustrated in their aims we will find ourselves cast as a scapegoat for failure, because of that supernatural, invisible-action-at-a-distance thing we do -- you know, like we're insidious carpenter ants chewing away in the walls of their psyches, destroying their studly strength, preventing their Victory.

Glenn concluded

[N]othing triggers hysteria [...] more than challenging the notion that it may not actually be necessary to wage Permanent and Endless War on Muslims. Arguing that is virtually tantamount to advocating that our nation's vicarious war cheerleaders be deprived of food, water and oxygen.

I have to say I think that depriving them of food, water and oxygen sounds just fine to me, just so long as it does not exceed the pain of, say, critical organ failure.