WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Sportsman's Daily Wire Service) -- The Iraqi national soccer team is an unlikely mix of Sunnis, Shia and Kurds whose success on the international stage (most recently winning the 2007 Asian Cup) united a country torn apart by ongoing sectarian violence.

On Monday, soccer's international governing body announced that it will be suspending the Iraqi national team from international competition, based on a decision last week by the Iraqi government to disband the Iraqi Olympic Committee and other national sporting federations.

Declaring the decision "unfortunate and inconvenient," President George W. Bush vowed to find another metaphorical example of non-sectarian success.

"There's lots of positive stuff going on that's not being reported. The Iraqi soccer team's a great story and very inspiring, even if you're not a huge fan of the game. Personally, I prefer sports that involve your hands, like American football or the great game of baseball; in fact, several years back, as part of her diplomatic outreach to that part of the world, Karen Hughes was planning on organizing a buncha fun touch football games as a way of reaching out to young Arab kids. Unfortunately, one of our fellas referred to the ball as a pigskin, which caused a near riot. If there's anything that's a no-no in the Arab world it's the presence of pork-related products."

The president went on to cite a series of unconfirmed reports of Sunnis, Shia and Kurds peaceably engaged in a variety of recreational activities.

"Just yesterday we got reports out of Fallujah--two Kurds, a Shiite and a Sunni were playing checkers in a park. There were a bunch of heated arguments and threats, and at one point, guns were drawn, but at the end of the day, no one got beat up, shot, raped or kidnapped. We're making real progress on the ground with real people. Very encouraging."

Bush acknowledges that they haven't found the "perfect symbol" just yet, but he's remains optimistic one will be unearthed in the coming days and/or weeks.

"Three days ago, there were reports out of the south of Iraq involving a bunch of Sunnis helping a Shia family headed to a wedding change a tire...I'm not going to lie, they were beaten, stripped and robbed, but thanks to the unexpected kindness they were only 15 minutes late to the wedding, which was real fortunate as just 10 minutes before, the mosque was leveled by a home-made explosive. So, yeah, we haven't found the perfect anecdote, but I remain optimistic it's out there."

Renowned literary scholar and regular NY Times contributor, Stanley Fish, pointed out the inherent irony in the president's approach. "It's interesting that one of our least literarily inclined presidents would resort to a classic literary device--the metaphor--to sell his Iraq policy. Hey, I appreciate postmodern irony as much as the next guy, but if this administration had placed more emphasis on the literal than the literary, we'd have all been better off, but I guess bad habits are hard to break."

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