One of Bremer's guards stands in front of a monument built at a site where a mass grave of victims of Saddam Hussein's regime was discovered (photo: AP)

Washington wants an Iraqi government that meets the requirements of that administration's project for the reform and democratisation of the Arab world and the forging of a Greater Middle East. Such a government could never be anything but an extension of those earlier projects under the monarchical and republican orders in which democratic processes and culture were manipulated or subverted for the purpose of falsifying popular support for the regime and perpetuating itself in power.