Baghdad Mayor Alaa al-Tamimi has been fired.

The mayor of the capital of Iraq was forced out this week when a group of armed men reportedly entered the municipal building and installed a member of a Shiite militia. The head of the city council ensures us there's nothing to see here.

The group that ousted him insisted that it had the authority to assume control and that Tamimi was in no danger. The man the group installed, Hussein al-Tahaan, is a member of the Badr Organization, the armed militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as Sciri.

"If we wanted to do something bad to him, we would have done that," said Mazen A. Makkia, the elected city council chief who led the ouster and who had been in a lengthy legal feud with Tamimi.

"We really want to establish the state of law for every citizen, and we did not threaten anyone," Makkia said. "This is not a coup."

Whew. I feel better already. Democracy in action.