So, despite my earlier credulity, it appears the smartest response to the arrests of at least two dozen officials in the Iraqi interior ministry is, indeed, to doubt that there was ever, in fact, an attempted coup. McClatchy reports:

Some news reports said the officers were trying to organize a coup to unseat Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, but National Police Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf dismissed that as an “unreal” possibility. He said Maliki has direct role in security, and it would be difficult for an officer to stage a coup.

“The situation on the ground won’t allow them to make it,” Khalaf told Iraqi television. “The coup is unreal because the officers are from low ranks and traffic police. They have no power . . . No unit can move from place to place without the order of Maliki.”

But Khalaf is of course a high-ranking officer in the Ministry of the Interior, so he’s probably COVERING UP THE — sorry, I’ll stop. So there was no coup. What happened? The Los Angeles Times:

Sunni lawmaker Salim Abdullah Jabouri denounced the arrests.

“It wasn’t to intimidate the Sunnis necessarily but rather to frighten the officers in the ministries of Interior and Defense so that they can be controlled and [to] make them anxious,” Jabouri said. “It came suddenly and without any justifications or warnings.”

Phony coups are the handmaidens to consolidations of power.