Jafari Wins Shi’ite Nomination for Iraqi PM

Ibrahim Jafari, a physician by trade and current interim leader of Iraq by quirk of history, won the Shi’ite bloc’s nomination for Prime Minister of Iraq by a single vote. In what may be heralded as a triumph of parliamentary democracy, Dr. Jafari is now almost guaranteed to be the Prime Minister, since the Shi’ites hold a majority. However, his victory came about through the machinations of Moqtada al Sadr, the man who will be Iraq’s Ayatollah Khomenei before this farce ends.

The math worked like this. Out of the 275 seats in the new parliament, the Shi’ite bloc holds 130, far more than the Kurds, the Sunnis and the various minorities. While they will have to cut a deal with one other faction (and they’ve been working with the Kurds for a year now), the numbers mean the Shi’ites get their way.

Dr. Jafari and his rival Adel Abdul Mahdi, a secular economist, couldn’t agree on a consensus result. So, the vote went 64 to 63 for Dr. Jafari because, as the Washington Post put it, “The popular and fiercely anti-American cleric Moqtada Sadr threw his support behind Jafari’s Dawa party, tipping the balance against Mahdi’s Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Jafari then garnered the support of enough independent voters to score a narrow victory.”

This means that the Sadr forces hold the balance of power in the Shi’ite bloc, which means they have an incredible amount of influence in the emerging coalition. Moqtada al Sadr is the very last person the US wants in a position of influence, and yet, the policy in Washington has brought him just that. A simple internet search of “Sadr” will give one all the information necessary to see that he is trouble for the west, and for secular Iraqis.

The US responded to this victory for the physician and the preacher with a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece from US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, in which he said, “Elected leaders need to govern from the center, not the ideological extremes.” The irony of the most ideological presidency in American history presuming to suggest moderation in Iraq is gut-wrenching. Even more intestine-twisting is the knowledge that the diligent application of the neo-con prescription of democracy in Iraq has given a Muslim scholar so much power to pursue theocracy.

The Danish flag appears here as a protest against the violence being done to the free press of that country and elsewhere by those offended by some cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be unto him. A perceived insult is not an excuse for intimidation and violence, even in the name of the Creator. One cannot insult God, only small-minded men who falsely claim to speak for Him. © Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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