"President Bush delivered an important demonstration of American support for Iraq's new democratic government in his visit to Baghdad yesterday," editorializes The Washington Post. I rather doubt it makes a difference one way or another, but when you think about it isn't Bush's visit much more likely to have undercut Nouri al-Maliki's government than given it an important demonstration of support?

After all, suppose al-Maliki wanted to make a secret trip to the United States on his private jet. Well, he wouldn't be able to. Nor would Angela Merkel or Junichiro Koizumi or Tony Blair. Nor, for that matter, would Bush have been able to make a secret visit to Italy or Brazil or Singapore. Indeed, one sort of doubts he could have even made a trip to, say, Chicago without talking it over with the mayor first (local police for the motorcade, etc.)

What he did was make Iraq look like a colony of the United States. It's also worth noting in this regard that Iraq's "new democratic government" is in part the result of an election and a bargain between Iraqi political parties and in part the result of the Bush administration demanding that Iraq's incumbent Prime Minister, Interior Minister, and Defense Minister all be fired. One doubts that Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld will be replaced at the behest of a foreign government or that Americans generally -- no matter how disgruntled with their job performance -- would look all that kindly on an effort by our allies to dictate who gets which jobs in the administration.