Apparently, Iraq Has A Ways To Go (Updated)

Iraq still doesn't get it:

Iraq said on Sunday it would prosecute a politician who made a trip to Israel and angry parliamentarians voted to strip him of his legal immunity.

Members of parliament said Mithal al-Alusi had committed a crime by "visiting a country that Iraq considers an enemy", in breach of a law they said had been retained since the rule of late dictator Saddam Hussein.

...Alusi made a trip there earlier this month for a conference on terrorism and security.

So, what interest would al-Alusi have in the topics of terrorism and security? Besides the obvious--

Two sons of Alusi were murdered in 2005 and a former culture minister, Asaad al-Hashemi, was found guilty in absentia last month and sentenced to hang for involvement in the killings.

Iraq has still not divested itself totally of the spirit of Saddam Hussein.

UPDATE: Abe Greenwald makes an interesting point:

Max, Alusi’s sufferings bring up another point: the canard that we went to war in Iraq on Israel’s behalf, to make it safer, a canard spread by major media commentators like Joe Klein and Andrew Sullivan.

In light of Alusi’s treatment, we dual-loyalists who support the war in Iraq might want to consider closing up shop. It’s rather striking that we don’t. In fact, if safety-for-Israel had been the primary goal of the War in Iraq, neoconservatives would have bailed out at least by 2005, when the newly drawn-up Iraq Constitution specifically denied citizenship to Israeli nationals.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Iraq and Mithal al-Alusi.