The Washington Post reported on the new government in these terms.
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- On a day heralded as a new beginning for Iraq, many Iraqis were divided on whether the newly inaugurated national unity government will be able to curtail sectarian violence in the country. "We have been waiting for a genuine change in Iraqi life since the fall of Saddam's regime in 2003, but the security ... has deteriorated from worse to worst," said Zakyaa Nasir, 52, in the southern city of Amarah. Her husband was an Iraqi soldier killed during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Leave it to The Washington Post!
delegitimization of the IRaqi government will continue unabated. Some will continue to object to the ends. The two things Ahmedinajad made clear in his rambling letter/declaration of war were that (1) liberal democracy was a failure and that (2) it was doomed to the scrap heap of history, with a little of his help to boot. Many people, not all of whom are Muslims, agree with him and will act in concert with him on this matter.
Others will take issue with the means. Sure, it's a liberal democracy, they'll say, but it is an illegitimate one because it was forced upon an occupied people, many of whom met their maker because of our heavy-handed, unilateral, cowboy ways. They'd be happier if the UN had created a provisional government that lasted for 15+ years.
There will also be those seeking to delegitimize by pointing to the apparent ineffectiveness of the new Iraqi government. They'll claim that the government is a sham because it fails in one of its most basic duties- providing security for its citizenry. They will not apply this standard to any other country however as it would provide the pretext for intervention.
And should security improve, they'll move the goalposts, i.e. they'll complain about irregular electricity, lack of clean drinking water, the number of miles of unpaved roads, whether oil production is lower than it was before or immediately after Saddam's fall, and how many schoolboys got beat up on the way home.
And as the SAddam trial continues, expect complaints here too. Experts will be trotted out to proclaim that the trial falls beneath internationally-accepted standards of jurisprudence, blah blah blah. If the judge is too soft, they'll take to calling him the "Judge Ito" of Iraq.
And when Saddam hangs, some will see nothing but Rovian machinations designed to boost the sagging approval ratings of the President.
My expectation is that the International Left, much of the US media, many prominent Democrats, and a grab bag of freedom-hatin' governments and peoples the world over will take to criticizing the legitimate Iraqi government with the same ferocity that they now criticize the US government. The latter is, for some time, going to be called by many a stooge of the latter.
For the above named groups not to do the aforementioned things would be to conceded victory to Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and to legitimize the Bush Doctrine. That can't be allowed to happen.