Thus, what only a few months ago had looked from Washington like a successful transition to some sort of representative government is obviously a travesty: just as under Saddam, power today grows out of the barrel of the gun – only now the state does not hold a monopoly on the means of violence. Every militia, every ministry, every Shia political faction, has its own guns, goons, and death squads – while the Sunnis continue to use the stockpiles of weapons they accumulated under Saddam to fight a rear-guard action against the new order, apparently legitimized by elections.
这样，几个月前在美国看来还是一个成功的向某种形式的代表性政府的过渡现在看起来就是一场滑稽戏。和萨达姆统治一样，如今也是枪杆子里面出政权，唯一不同的就是国家现在不再垄断暴力手段了。每一个民兵组织，每一个牧师，每一个什叶派政治派别都有自己的枪炮、受雇暴徒以及杀人小队，而逊尼派则继续使用他们在萨达姆统治时期囤积的武器同一个新的、明显地是由选举所合法化的秩序作战，以维持旧有状态。