Pal-ocracy fulfilling prophecy?

John Kerry has forecast many times that there will be no Iraqi elections in January (while declaring that there should be an Iraqi vote at some point), and he has also broadly hinted that the legitimacy of January elections will be in question because of the lack of U.N. participation. The president has stated that the elections will be held as scheduled, in as much of the precincts as possible, and oh by the way, the U.N. is already involved.

Now comes news that the United Nations is setting the stage for a second "run away!" moment from Iraq since the Iraq reconstruction began. Captain Ed over at the indispensable Captain's Quarters: has the low-down plus links of why it is likely that "The UN Prepares to Cut and Run Again." The short version is that the union workers of the U.N. are begging Kofi Annan to pull out now. Or as the Captain summarizes:

"In other words, we'd love to see Iraq as a safe and peaceful country, but we're not going to do any heavy lifting to make it happen. We'd love Iraqis to be free, but only if someone else makes all the bad people go away."

A failure to conduct elections on schedule would be a victory for the terrorists who are attempting to abort a new democratic Iraq, and a defeat, at least short term, for U.S. hopes. Any U.N. retreat announced before Nov. 2 could be considered a "win" for John Kerry's ability to "predict" events in the MidEast and a vindication for his pessimism. Thus it is to Kerry's advantage for the U.S. to lose ground in its nation-rebuilding efforts.

Is it too cynical to wonder if the union workers at the U.N., with an eye to the American elections, are doing their best to bring about the fulfillment of Kerry's prophecy? Or, in another light, is it not too late to sabotage the presidential election in the United States so that a U.N.-friendly Kerry can put to rights the upset applecart that was the Oil-for-Food Program, a tremendous financial boon for select individuals in the upper echelons of the U.N., France, Germany and Russia. In short, all of our old friends who helped so much with Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The just released Iraqi Survey Report extensively details the corruption Saddam encouraged among our "allies," prompted this response from Glenn Reynolds of Powerline :

The "Global Test" bit looks kind of bad, in this light. But it looks even worse when you consider the other revelations of the Iraq Survey Group -- namely, that most of the opposition to the war came from people who were being bribed by Saddam... It's hard to pass the "Global Test" when the people grading it are being bribed to administer a failing grade.

You can read the entire Iraqi Survey Report at

http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/iraq/cia93004wmdrpt.html

and I would highly encourage you to do so.