Now that the Super Bowl is over and people have (mostly) stopped reminiscing about Janet Jackson’s breast, it is time to return to the biggest sport of all — politics. Hang with me here — politics really is a sport, halfway between chess and hunting.

The first clue is that major politicos, who set the political pulse, engage in politics in a manner that more closely resembles game play and strategy than issue-oriented problem solving.

Take for example Sean Hannity, a major media figure and an organ of the Republican Party. He recently did a segment on Iraqi elections and the “purple finger” political party, with the idea being that people should dip their pointer finger in purple ink to show solidarity with Iraqis, who were marked at the polls in the same manner. After dedicating a short amount of time to explaining the meaning behind the purple-finger salute, he flew into a pants-wetting rage at those who wouldn’t participate in the purple-finger party.

Hannity was probably unaware of the message he was sending — that the segment was done solely to attack political opponents and not to show or support “solidarity.” The whole segment was centered around political combat, and the Iraqis were only mentioned as a function of introducing that segment’s political weapon — purple fingers.

It is strange indeed to listen to someone claim “solidarity” with the Iraqi people, while in the same breath, use them as ammunition against political opponents. It’s halfway between hunting and chess.

The proven one-move checkmate against the pundits and political pranksters is to remove the team-oriented lens of parties and replace it with an issue-oriented approach. Only then is the rhetoric revealed for what it is. With this approach in mind, let’s have another look at Hannity’s purple-finger party.

What Hannity left out of his segment was the significance of the vote, containing both positive and negative elements that will ultimately collide and perhaps create a new set of conditions defining Iraq.

The first and most obvious outcome of the election was the jubilation felt by Iraqis who had been unable to choose their leadership for a long time. This is undeniably good, and it is unfortunate than Hannity used Iraqis as political ammunition.

Through a partisan, politics-as-sport lens, the story ends there. But the reality in Iraq is, like any other place, multidimensional and cannot be limited as such. Out of the election there also rose a frightening condition in diametric opposition to the aforementioned jubilation.

This antithesis comes in the combination of Sunni disenfranchisement and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s call for Iraq’s new law code to be taken solely from Islam. To put it another way, the newly liberated Shiites are about to dominate under the direction of al-Sistani, who will act with autocratic power.

A spokesperson for al-Sistani — the most powerful person in Iraq — said, “We warn officials against a separation of the state and religion, because this is completely rejected by the ulema and marja and we will accept no compromise on this question.” The ulema is a community of Islamic legal scholars, and the marja is the highest authority on religion and law in Shia Islam.

No compromise from the source of power in Iraq. With the emergence of Islamic theocracy in Iraq, established by the Shia under the control of al-Sistani, one can only wonder how long it will take for the purple ink to dry. Remember the media frenzy over Janet Jackson’s boob? Just imagine it happening under Islamic theocracy.