Iraqis Vote, Violence Continues, Americans Stay

The people of Iraq voted yesterday for the third time in eleven months. First in January, they chose an assembly to draft a constitution (which has also acted as a government). Second in October, they voted to approve that constitution. Yesterday, they voted for members of parliament under that constitution. The violence did diminish thanks to heightened security, but there were still explosions in Baghdad and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Pentagon says there are 160,000 US troops in Iraq, up from 138,000 a year ago.

Mr. Bush made his fourth speech on Iraq since discovering that talking to the American people is good for his poll numbers. He said little that was new, although he did accept responsibility for launching a war of aggression based on faulty intelligence. Then, he had the audacity to say he’d do it again because Iraqi democracy was worth it. That may be, but it would have been better for American democracy if the pre-war debate had been about that rather than non-existent weapons of mass destruction that some analysts said before the war didn’t exist. Mr. Bush lies (the word is used very deliberately) when he says everybody agreed the Saddamites had such weapons.

Looking ahead, though, things don’t seem much brighter than they have been. While democratic elections are good in that they bestow legitimacy on a government, they don’t necessarily result in good or sensible government. Herr Hitler, after all, got voted into office. It is doubtful there is anyone in Iraq currently running for parliament who could rival him, but the nation is far from being the Athens of Pericles either. Indeed, Mr. Bush may have created a democracy hostile to America because he lacks the imagination to see that such a thing could be. For now though, one can expect months of squabbling over who gets what job. Results of the election won’t even be known until the very end of the month, and only then will the negotiating start. Once there’s a government, perhaps there will be some Iraqi patriots who will fight for it. Months from now, the Americans will still be there; the Pentagon plan is to have the number down to 100,000 by 2007 – that’s not getting out or bringing the troops home by any stretch of the imagination.

Turning to the nuts and bolts of the voting, the 275 seats in parliament are largely allotted province by province, some 230 MPs will be elected this way. The remaining 45 seats are called “compensatory seats” and will be allocated to address imbalances in the popular vote and the provincial level seats (thus coming in second will have some reward). This system means the Sunnis, who boycotted the January elections, will have more seats whether they vote in any significant numbers or not. Their active participation this time provides legitimacy to the resulting regime, but beyond that, it is not all that important. The Shi'ites will still have the biggest say.

With regard to the insurgents/resistance/troublemakers, they aren’t going to stop their campaign of violence now just because there are 15 million or so purple index fingers in Iraq. Until a government emerges from these elections, they have no reason to do so. After there is a government, they may decide they don’t like it, and they’ll still keep fighting. Democracy in Iraq has been hailed as a major milestone, and it is. But milestones are things one passes on the way to a destination; the final steps are a long way off yet.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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