From Informed Comment: http://www.juancole.com/

Sunday, January 30, 2005

A Mixed Story 

I'm just appalled by the cheerleading tone of US news coverage of the
so-called elections in Iraq on Sunday.  I said on television last week that
this event is a "political earthquake" and "a historical first step" for
Iraq.  It is an event of the utmost importance, for Iraq, the Middle East,
and the world.  All the boosterism has a kernel of truth to it, of course.
Iraqis hadn't been able to choose their leaders at all in recent decades,
even by some strange process where they chose unknown leaders.  But this
process is not a model for anything, and would not willingly be imitated by
anyone else in the region.  The 1997 elections in Iran were much more
democratic, as were the 2002 elections in Bahrain and Pakistan.

Moreover, as Swopa rightly reminds us all , the Bush administration opposed
one-person, one-vote elections of this sort.  First they were going to turn
Iraq over to Chalabi within six months.  Then Bremer was going to be
MacArthur in Baghdad for years.  Then on November 15, 2003, Bremer announced
a plan to have council-based elections in May of 2004.  The US and the UK
had somehow massaged into being provincial and municipal governing councils,
the members of which were pro-American.  Bremer was going to restrict the
electorate to this small, elite group.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani immediately gave a fatwa denouncing this plan
and demanding free elections mandated by a UN Security Council resolution.
Bush was reportedly "extremely offended" at these two demands and opposed
Sistani.  Bremer got his appointed Interim Governing Council to go along in
fighting Sistani. Sistani then brought thousands of protesters into the
streets in January of 2004, demanding free elections .  Soon thereafter,
Bush caved and gave the ayatollah everything he demanded.  Except that he
was apparently afraid that open, non-manipulated elections in Iraq might
become a factor in the US presidential campaign, so he got the elections
postponed to January 2005.  This enormous delay allowed the country to fall
into much worse chaos, and Sistani is still bitter that the Americans didn't
hold the elections last May.  The US objected that they couldn't use UN food
ration cards for registration, as Sistani suggested.  But in the end that is
exactly what they did.

So if it had been up to Bush, Iraq would have been a soft dictatorship under
Chalabi, or would have had stage-managed elections with an electorate
consisting of a handful of pro-American notables.  It was Sistani and the
major Shiite parties that demanded free and open elections and a UNSC
resolution.  They did their job and got what they wanted.  But the Americans
have been unable to provide them the requisite security for truly aboveboard
democratic elections.

With all the hoopla, it is easy to forget that this was an extremely
troubling and flawed "election."  Iraq is an armed camp.  There were troops
and security checkpoints everywhere.  Vehicle traffic was banned.  The
measures were successful in cutting down on car bombings that could have
done massive damage.  But even these Draconian steps did not prevent
widespread attacks, which is not actually good news.  There is every reason
to think that when the vehicle traffic starts up again, so will the
guerrilla insurgency.

The Iraqis did not know the names of the candidates for whom they were
supposedly voting.  What kind of an election is anonymous!  There were even
some angry politicians late last week who found out they had been included
on lists without their permission.  Al-Zaman compared the election process
to buying fruit wholesale and sight unseen.  (This is the part of the
process that I called a "joke," and I stand by that.)

This thing was more like a referendum than an election.  It was a referendum
on which major party list associated with which major leader would lead
parliament. 

Many of the voters came out to cast their ballots in the belief that it was
the only way to regain enough sovereignty to get American troops back out of
their country.  The new parliament is unlikely to make such a demand
immediately, because its members will be afraid of being killed by the Baath
military.  One fears a certain amount of resentment among the electorate
when this reticence becomes clear.

Iraq now faces many key issues that could tear the country apart, from the
issues of Kirkuk and Mosul to that of religious law.  James Zogby on Wolf
Blitzer wisely warned the US public against another "Mission Accomplished"
moment.  Things may gradually get better, but this flawed "election" isn't a
Mardi Gras for Americans and they'll regret it if that is the way they treat
it. 

posted by Juan @ 1/30/2005 04:02:14 PM  


Alison Croggon

Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead:  http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com