McCain Adviser Plans Casino on the Tigris

McCain Adviser Plans Casino on the Tigris
Juan Cole

Hat tip to Raed Jarrar and to Rick B at Ten Percent:

A 'liaison to the Jewish community' and 'foreign policy adviser' to the McCain campaign was interviewed last February on television in Baghdad about plans for a Las Vegas-style five star hotel and casino smack dab in the middle of the Green Zone in Baghdad. He promises a trickle down effect of wealthy gamblers' losses helping Iraq's poor. He promises Iraqi women jobs as maids in the hotel rooms. He promises Thai and Russian masseuses. He reduces Iraqis to being like Native Americans on reservations.

Actually, casinos are always socially regressive, hurting the poor disproportionately. The Green Zone is like a stone's throw away from Sadrist-dominated Sadr City. Why does he think the religious Shiites will put up with all this? The Iraqi maids will be viewed as violating norms of gender segregation. The other activities would attract . . . sanctions under the sharia. In fact, that wonderful Iraqi constitution that the US Republican Party was so enthusiastic about forbids parliament to pass any law contrary to Islamic canon law. Since gambling is forbidden in the Qur'an, it is unlikely that the Iraqi parliament can legalize it.

The 'foreign policy adviser's' comments are particularly tasteless in light of the actual conditions under which most Iraqis live.

But, well, if McCain does plan to turn Iraq into sort of a big Las Vegas, at least that would explain his odd desire to be there for a hundred years.