Power Struggle in America - A Guide for Iraqis

Considering that there are some 140,000 American troops occupying their country, political developments in the United States are of some importance to the people of Iraq. This guide is meant to help Iraqis make sense of the political chaos enveloping America in the 2008 election season. It includes a summary of the major factions, their ethnic and ideological divisions, and the relative strength of their militias.

The presidency of George W. Bush is winding to a close with no male heir in the family - a tragedy for any leader. As a result, the political situation in the United States has been in ferment for the last 15 months. God willing, this ferment will resolve itself soon and the United States will have a new, Democratic president capable of re-establishing the authority of the central government, granting amnesty to those Republicans who lay down their arms, and crushing and scattering those who do not like dust in the wind.

The American political system is dominated by the Republican and Democratic parties, which have ruled the nation without interruption for the last century and a half. The Republican Party has traditionally been dominated by the al-Bush family and their retainers, while the Democratic Party has belonged to the House of Clinton.

The last time a major popular uprising against the two parties took place was in the 1990s, in an insurgency mounted by the wealthy Texan warlord H. Ross abd al-Perot. The forces of the two parties ruthlessly stamped out the rebellion, which was outnumbered and outgunned. Entire villages loyal to al-Perot were wiped out at that time, and today stand as barren ghost towns in the Texas prairie, where monuments to the Bush clan and the Republican Party have been erected as a grim warning to any others who would follow their example. Smaller insurgencies led by Ralph al-Nadir and Ron Ernest al-Paul have been stamped out with even greater ease, their followers forced to seek refuge in deep caves that only exist online.

Within the Republican Party, a fierce contest for leadership took place over the course of the last year, pitting forces loyal to John Sidney al-McCain III against those loyal to Willard Mitt abd al-Romney. A third faction was led by Michael Dale al-Huckabee, a cleric of the Southern Baptists who had built a power base among the lower classes in the Ozarks, but who has not yet completed the requisite years of Bible study necessary to don the black toupee of a televangetollah. All three contenders claimed the mantle of Ronald Reagan, a mythical leader from the 1980s, who is commonly portrayed on American pottery and divans riding a white horse and wielding a tax-cutting sabre.

While al-Huckabee should be considered an outsider, in his own words one generation away from outdoor toilets, both al-McCain and al-Romney came from powerful dynasties - the former the son and grandson of Admirals, and the latter the son of a powerful CEO and governor.

A crucial battle between the forces of the three Republicans took place in the state of South Carolina. By Feb. 6, it was clear that the al-McCain forces had successfully seized control of the Republican Party, to everyone's bewilderment, and what followed was essentially a mop-up operation. An uneasy peace now reigns within the Party, with roughly half of Republicans expressing dissatisfaction with their new leader, but afraid to speak out lest their loyalty be questioned. It remains to be seen whether the coalition can hold together through November, God willing.

Within the Democratic Party, two powerful leaders have emerged, creating what has been termed an extremely low-intensity civil war. Hillary ar-Rodham umm Clinton, wife of a former party leader, belongs to a powerful group known as the women. Women constitute a majority in America but have been historically disenfranchised and dominated by the men, who have formed a majority in the military, police and politicians - creating a situation similar to 1980s Yugoslavia, where non-Serbs formed a majority of the overall population but Serbs formed a majority of the armed forces.

The Clinton machine was widely expected to re-take control of the Party in 2008, but met with unexpectedly stiff opposition from Barack abd al-Hussein Obama, a member of the blacks, an ethnic group that forms a majority in some regions of the Deep South and Inner Cities, and suffers form its own history of oppression and disenfranchisement. Obama has personal and political ties to Jerem Aiah al-Wright, a radical cleric who opposes compromise with non-blacks, and has also benefited from the support of Oprah al-Gail al-Winfrey, a leader of both the woman and black tribes, who commands a personal empire that includes a fanatical book club estimated to number in the tens of thousands. There are some who question al-Winfrey's ability to control her book club members, with some believing them to be loose cannons. Both of these alliances have served to make Obama loom as a more dangerous figure than anyone realized at the beginning of the year, when he was widely ridiculed as "Obambi," which is an English conjugation meaning "puny Obama.

Obama-Obambi is also related by blood to Kenyan leader Raila Amolo Odinga. Kenya has been the scene of simmering ethnic tensions for decades, tensions that have recently exploded in a wave of violence. It is unclear whether it is more likely for the civil war in Kenya to spill over into the Democratic Party, or for a civil war within the Democratic Party to spill over into Kenya, but the United Nations has convened an emergency summit to discuss the matter and vote on the possibility of someday considering a firmly-worded resolution.

Beneath both parties lies a network of special-interest groups, whose volunteers form the equivalent of political militias. Evangelical Christians form the shock troops of the Republican Party, terrorizing the southern regions of the country, and virtually controlling the major religious shrine-cities such as Colorado Springs, where the reverend-prophet James Clayton abd al-Dobson lives within an enormous dome. The Republican Party also has a close relationship with the guardians of the nation's oil resources, causing many Democrats to fear that if the nation splits, they will be left without a source of wealth.

The Democrats are supported not only by the blacks and the women, but also by the sinister, rainbow-clad forces of the gay agenda, as well as a vaguely defined but influential group known as the "struggling middle-class." To make the situation even more complex, an economic refugee population spilling over from neighboring Mexico has joined forces with ar-Rodham umm Clinton, even though their most powerful leader, Governor William Blaine ar-Richardson III, has recently grown intimidating facial hair and formed an alliance with Obama.

Most foreign observers do not believe that the tensions in the United States will escalate into an open civil war, though some have argued that a "low-intensity civil war" is already taking place. The foundation of the nation's relative stability is the previous experience of an extremely bloody Civil War in 1861-65, during which most of the hotheads killed each other off. Ever since, U.S. politics has been cushioned by a comforting blanket of public apathy, which has made it unlikely for any fist-waving and stockpiling of guns to be translated into actual armed conflict. American politicians regularly claim to oppose this apathy, even though they owe to it their survival. God willing, it will continue to provide the nation with security even through this election.