Operation Bringing Democracy to Iraq, Or Else

Watch this, wherein, after jarhead Scott Ritter, cross-eyed Ron Christie, flag lapel pin firmly attached, assures us that "democracy is flourishing" or some such crap in Iraq.

Is that the spin on the arrest of the 35 Iraqi Interior Ministry people accused of plotting to bring back the Baath party? That democracy has triumphed? Here's the clearest indication that democracy isn't exactly blooming in Iraq:

[O]fficials also said that the arrests had come at the hand of an elite counterterrorism force that reports directly to the office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

You see, Ron Christie & others who spout the party line, when the P. M. of a nation has "an elite counterterrorism force that reports directly to [his] office" that is a secret police force, whether it's called a "counterterrorism forcee or the plumbers. And when 

Rumors of coups, conspiracies and new alliances abound in the Iraqi capital a month before provincial elections. Critics of Mr. Maliki say he has been using arrests to consolidate power.

And

Iraq is a nation where leadership has often changed by coup, and as next month’s provincial elections approach, worry about violence is increasing. So are accusations about politically charged detentions.

The only thing flourishing is instability.