Corruption in Iraq? Seriously?!

The New York Times reported today that several dozen Iraqi government officials had been arrested for allegedly plotting a coup that would return Saddam’s Baathist party to power. While such an event is no doubt disturbing, I also can’t help but wonder if Iraq’s Prime Minister, Mr. Maliki, isn’t using the arrests to consolidate his own power.

The truth is probably somewhere in between those two poles. The arrested officials were probably plotting to seize more power, whether lawfully or unlawfully. But according to this NYTimes article, Mr. Maliki has recently been firing government anti-corruption officials.

Were the arrested officials actually disloyal? Or is Maliki using the corruption – corruption that his own policies have helped flourish – to clean the government of officials he views as less-than-loyal to him? We might never know the answer.