Maliki: I order you not to call me authoritarian!

So, surprisingly, it turns out that Nouri al Maliki is kinda sorta maybe turning into Saddam Hussein. Or so reports The Guardian. And Maliki's response? Well, he's gotten a court to order The Guardian to pay a 100 million dinar fine (that's about 52,000 pounds) for the offending article.

So basically, Maliki's response to a media report about him being authoritarian is to crack down on the media. Well done.

Hilariously, the article is almost sympathetic to Maliki's coming into his own as the new Iraqi dictator. It's like watching a baby grow up. "Oh, look, he's got his own intelligence service!" Oh yeah, here's the offending article on that:

Any self-respecting Iraqi politician who wants to build his own power base must first establish or acquire his own intelligence service. After a couple of weeks in Baghdad talking to politicians, members of parliament and intelligence officials I came to the conclusion that Iraq has seven separate intelligence units. Or maybe eight. No one could agree on the precise number.

I get tired of saying this, but... we went to war for this?