>>I hear echoes of the same kind of thinking that helped lubricate the
installation of Khomeini...<<
Maybe so but:
1) The fact that almost everyone (including nearly the entirety of the Iranian left) thought that the installation of Khomeini was a good idea ought to indicate that it was not an entirely stupid idea, and the fact that it turned into a disaster is an experiment with a sample size of one.
2) Pre-Khomeini Iraq was in nothing like the kind of state that Iraq is in now, and any possibility has to be compared to the alternatives. Hence a "qualified" defence of Sadr; I am unlikely to join the Madhi Army even if it opens up a North London branch, but that isn't the same thing as saying that there are plenty of worse alternatives in Iraq, and it is quite possible that all the feasible ones are worse.
3) Regarding your Foucault article Leninology is *right* when he says that Sadr isn't really much of an Islamist. He's a nationalist of an Islamic country; he isn't a proxy for Iran, he isn't a pan-Islamist and his one big intervention in the political sphere has been to demand democratic elections. (It is quite hard to work out exactly what he believes in because he's never stood in an election but it isn't the same thing as Khomeini). I don't even have any specific information to back up my implied suggestion that he would institute repressive anti-gay laws - this was just an excuse to get in an unrelated jibe about Fidel Castro because qualified support of Castro is more or less consensus position on this list.
If anyone wants to be really disgusted by lesserevilism, here is a piece by me arguing against calls for the Sudanese government to be regime-changed
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/daniel_davies/2006/08/save_darfur_from_save_darfur.html
Al-Bashir and his gang are some of the most purely evil people on earth, but when the consequences of getting rid of them in the near term look worse, I say you sup with the devil. After swallowing that camel, Sadrism is a very small gnat indeed.
best dd
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