Pinochet Rises

According to Dean Barnett, we need another Pinochet to run Iraq: What America needs, and what the Iraqis need, is a government that has its heart in the right place but won’t mind ignoring certain “niceties” when necessary. Think of a leader like Andrew Jackson. Or, more likely, someone like Augusto Pinochet, whose ruthlessness has obscured for history the free market reforms he imposed that saved Chile and the democracy he bequeathed to his previously misbegotten country. Again, we see that Conservatives think that as long as one improves the economy (free market reforms), it is OK to be a genocidal dictator... "democracy he bequeathed"? Is he serious? I will say, however, that this is the first time I recall seeing this from the pro-war crowd: We are in Iraq primarily for our own interests. And we want to leave something decent behind in Iraq, something that doesn't completely reek, mostly because it would be adverse to American interests to do otherwise. In other words, it would be an unacceptable resolution to the Iraq situation if the Iraqi people settled on a Shiite theocracy as their preferred form of government. This smacks in the face of all the years of argument for the war with "good" reasons. Barnett admits that we are only in Iraq to help "our interests". Which interests could he possibly be referring to, I wonder? Moreover, is anyone really surprised?