What now?

[Libertarian Toker]

Sunday's election in Iraq is a crucial test of a grand experiment carried out under the most difficult conditions imaginable, in a bubbling cauldron of hope and fear. It will test President George W. Bush's utopian ideal of seeding democracy in barren Arab ground. And it will test Iraqis' will to determine their own fate.

It's an anomalous vote in a nation where a fierce civil war has crippled one-third of its territory but left the other two-thirds largely peaceful and functioning. It's no exaggeration to say that Bush's foreign policy goals will be judged not only by the outcome of the Iraqi vote but by what needs to be done afterward to form a permanent government.



Hopes and fears

The hope is that Iraqis will have enough confidence in the future of their nation as a democracy to come out and vote for delegates who'll be charged with drafting a constitution and forming a permanent government. The fear is that the insurgency, determined to sabotage the elections, will attack polling places, voters and candidates with such ferocity that most Sunni Arabs won't brave the streets to vote, reducing if not negating the legitimacy of the poll.

Bush is not far wrong in arguing that the Iraq war - whatever its flawed premises - has become a key part of the evolving struggle between democracy and Islamist fascism.

Just last week, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of the al-Qaida cell within Iraq, said on an Internet site that Islam is incompatible with the Western notion of a liberal democracy. He called for "an all-out war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology" and promised death to "apostates" who dare to participate in the democratic process. That's as stark a warning to Iraqi voters and politicians as anyone could make.

The outcome of the election is virtually pre-determined. Shia Arab delegates, representing 60 percent of the population, will get the lion's share of the vote. Kurds, who are Sunni Muslims but not Arabs, will get representation close to their 25 percent of the population. Turnout is expected to be heavy among these voters.



How to judge success

What's uncertain is the level of voting participation in the Sunni Triangle west and north of Baghdad, the center of the insurgency and the target of daily lethal attacks. Anything above 10 percent will be regarded as a victory by the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. If it's below 5 percent, the insurgents will celebrate. To be sure, the actual numbers and how the elections are carried out will be watched very carefully by other Arab nations and the United States, where Bush's Iraqi experiment appears to be losing popular support.



What comes next

But the outcome of the election, however telling, is not what's really important. What matters more is what comes afterward. First, the immediate reactions, in Iraq, the region and the world: How will the insurgency respond to the vote? Will violence increase in a nihilistic spasm of frustration or a renewed determination to oppose the formation of a permanent government at any cost? Or will ordinary Iraqis be heartened that so many voted in spite of the violence in the Sunni Triangle? How will fretful Arab nations and skeptical Europeans interpret the Iraqi vote? Those are questions no one can answer now.

Then, perhaps more important will be the moves that Iraqi leaders must make to ensure that delegates charged with drafting a constitution are accepted by Iraqis as legitimate and representative of the nation's ethnic and religious factions. This is where key Shia and Sunni leaders must play a crucial role of conciliation and accommodation to make the political process work at all.

In this context, two significant developments took place in the run-up to the vote that may smooth out the worst obstacles.

Shia leaders, conscious they would capture power in Iraq for the first time in four centuries, last weekend said they had decided the new Iraqi government would be a secular one, not a theocracy led by Shia clerics as in neighboring Iran. That decision was aimed at assuaging Sunni fears, and received the overt support of the most influential Shia cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.



Sunnis step in

In direct response to that decision, the next day Sunni Arab leaders who had boycotted the elections made a startling announcement. Reversing their previous stance, they said they intended to become involved in politics after the vote and would take part in writing a constitution that will enshrine political and religious rights for minorities.

In essence, Sunni leaders indicated that regardless of voting participation by their constituents, they would appoint or themselves become delegates to the constitutional convention, guaranteeing Sunni participation. That would minimize the significance of the election boycott in the Sunni Triangle and legitimize the political process that follows the vote - the drafting and ratification of a constitution and the election of national leaders.

These two moves, by Shia and Sunni leaders, are both politically courageous and shrewdly pragmatic. If they work, they could overcome questions about the vote's legitimacy and set the stage for cooperation and conciliation.



Minority rights

Shia leaders know their people will rejoice in taking power after decades of official repression under Saddam Hussein. But they also know that minority rights protections already built into the interim constitution allow for a veto of any part of the permanent constitution if two-thirds of the voters in any three provinces vote against ratification later this year. It just so happens that Sunni Arabs are most heavily concentrated in three provinces in the Sunni Triangle, as are Kurds in their own region.

For their part, Sunni Arabs and Kurds are under no illusion that elections will result in a Sunni or Kurdish prime minister. But they also know that the Shia bloc will need to bring smaller parties into a governing coalition, which opens the possibility of participation for minority groups.



Holy war

Over all this, of course, hangs the specter of the insurgency's increasing violence. The dismal reality is that there is no incentive or reason to stop fighting for either group forming the resistance, the former Baathist party members from Saddam Hussein's government who want to regain power or the jihadists under al-Zarqawi's command who are waging a holy war against the West.

The Baathists and their sympathizers have nothing to lose, and everything to gain in continuing to fight. They've already lost everything - power, prestige, wealth - and they hope that if they can keep up their guerrilla war long enough, the American public will become so disenchanted with Bush's war and disgusted with its cost in lives and money that U.S. troops will withdraw and leave the field to the resistance.

The jihadists see Iraq as a great magnet for recruitment in their holy war against the West and they, too, calculate that wearing down U.S. forces and American opinion ultimately will result in a great victory for their brand of Islam.



If U.S. pulls out

There is little question that if U.S. forces were to pull out now, the resistance would win the ensuing civil war against the Shia and take control - barring any military involvement by Iran to prevent that.



The will to win

As long as U.S. forces remain, the insurgency won't win. But U.S. forces can't defeat it, either. Only Iraqis can do that, once they have the trained security forces necessary to engage it. But they need the political will to do it. This election, and the democratic process it ushers in, may provide the spark to ignite that will to oppose the insurgency and ward off the oppression it would bring back to Iraq.

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/...ials-headlines

Libertarian Toker Reviewed by Libertarian Toker on 01-30-2005. What now? Sunday's election in Iraq is a crucial test of a grand experiment carried out under the most difficult conditions imaginable, in a bubbling cauldron of hope and fear. It will test President George W. Bush's utopian ideal of seeding democracy in barren Arab ground. And it will test Iraqis' will to determine their own fate. It's an anomalous vote in a nation where a fierce civil war has crippled one-third of its territory but left the other two-thirds largely peaceful and functioning. It's no Rating: 5

[Torog]

Howdy and good mornin,LT,

This is a good article,thanx for posting it,it seems that those opposed to the war-don't understand how fanning the flames of Freedom..is what matters.

"The will to win

As long as U.S. forces remain, the insurgency won't win. But U.S. forces can't defeat it, either. Only Iraqis can do that, once they have the trained security forces necessary to engage it. But they need the political will to do it. This election, and the democratic process it ushers in, may provide the spark to ignite that will to oppose the insurgency and ward off the oppression it would bring back to Iraq. "

What's so wrong for bringing Freedom and hope for freedom,to a part of the world-that has little experience with freedom ? Why do the anti-wars want to deny Freedom and hope,to millions of folks ? Why do the anti-wars,claim to be for human rights,when their opposition to the war,could cause much more suffering for women and children ?

Oh well..the anti-wars have their freedom..I reckon that's good enough for them.

Have a good one...Torog

[Torog]

Good mornin,LT.. I see ya lookin at this thread,by me looking at Who's online feature..lol..I'm in chat--if ya want to chat...lol.

Have a good one....Torog

[juggalo420]

What's so wrong for bringing Freedom and hope for freedom,to a part of the world-that has little experience with freedom ? Why do the anti-wars want to deny Freedom and hope,to millions of folks ? Why do the anti-wars,claim to be for human rights,when their opposition to the war,could cause much more suffering for women and children ?

Oh well..the anti-wars have their freedom..I reckon that's good enough for them.

the war in iraq wasnt started to free the iraqis, it was started on the false premise iraq had wmd's and was a threat to u.s security, neither of which turned out to be true so bush fell back on 'oh we did it to bring democracy to the middle east' (bullshit).
now since were in iraq i hope elections go good and they can develeop their army so u.s soilders can get the fuck out.
the condition of living in iraq was bad, most of the reason things were so bad was because of sanctions and corruption in the oil for food program. the mass graves that we found were filled over 10 years ago, so you cant say there was a on going massacar.

theres a few questions you have to ask before saying the war was worth starting to bring democracy to iraq:
but was bringing freedom to iraq worth 1000+ american soilders, billions and billions of dollars? was it our responsibilty to free them? why not go to war with countries with dictators worse than saddam? you say humanitarian reasons we went there, then why not in sudan where theres a on going genocide? is america any safer now after we relieze the primary reason to go to iraq(wmd's) is found out not to exist? are the iraqis any safer with terrorists blowing up iraqi police, soilders and innocent by-standers?

[F L E S H]

Blah Blah Blah.... This is getting old, guys, why don't you just talk amongst yourselves, like that nobody will be there to contradict you... (lol, not you, juggalo)

[Libertarian Toker]

Blah Blah Blah.... This is getting old, guys, why don't you just talk amongst yourselves, like that nobody will be there to contradict you... (lol, not you, juggalo)

We would, but loudmouths are always busting in on us to tell us how we should just talk to each other. I also kind of like the opposing views! It's actualy the whole reason I post on message boards.

Toker

[Libertarian Toker]

Torog

It seems some would not care if democracy failed in Iraq as long as they can blame bushy for it. These same people seem to live their lives just to see what they can say bad about the US next. They don't care what it is they are saying, just so long as it's shining that dark image onto the US. They move that tactic, or whatever it is, to individuals when they find someone in dissagreement with themselves. It's easy to see who they are, but they will never see themselves for what they truely are.

Toker