A Chara, - The US is building an enormous embassy inside the green zone in Baghdad. Covering 104 acres and costing $600 million, the complex will be the biggest and most expensive US embassy in the world. It is a perfect metaphor for the hubris of the current US administration.
Normally an embassy is about diplomacy. But given the de facto US power in the country, the relationship between the US and the Iraqi governments is less diplomacy than puppetry, even if pulling the strings doesn't always have the desired effect. The other key role of an embassy is to protect the interests of its nationals in a given territory.
In this case, however, the vast bulk of US nationals in Iraq are there in the form of an occupying army. They won't be calling at the new embassy to renew their papers. Furthermore, the building will be heavily fortified and will probably be the most impregnable embassy in the world. Surely that says something about the end result of the mission embarked upon with such gusto four years ago.
One commentator jibed that the complex had better have a large flat roof to help helicopters to pluck the staff to safety in the event of a cut and run. Sadly, he may well be right, and one can easily imagine that, as the last chopper lifts off, the embassy's new occupiers will rush into its chambers in delight, much as US troops did in Saddam's palace back in April, 2003. - Is mise,
CIARÁN MAC AONGHUSA, Churchtown, Dublin 14.