In The Red Zone

The results are posted and in the Land Between the Rivers, the deal-making has begun.  By all accounts, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is out, Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani are in, while secular Shia leader and on again-off again U.S. ally Ahmad Chalabi is proving adept at clinging to the greasy pole of post-Saddam Iraqi power.  (As for the Sunnis, we can only heave a collective sigh, quel dommage...)

Also demonstrating a keen--perhaps cunning is a better word--grasp of the shifting terrain of power is Moqtada al-Sadr, whom I mistakenly counted out after the elections:  according to Dexter Filkins in yesterday's Times, the chipmunk-cheeked cleric and his allies "appear likely to emerge as the largest single block inside the Shiite alliance with as many as 21 seats."  Infuriating, to say the least, considering he is responsible for the murders of innumerable Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers, and perhaps a pro-American Ayatollah or two...

Nor should we overlook the person whom I still believe will probably remain the behind-the-scenes power-broker, SCIRI head Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

All of this raises fears of Islamist domination of Iraq, manifested in close Iranian ties and the imposition of shari'a over at least the southern portion of the country.  Indeed, Basra has already fallen under strict fundamentalist control.  Should the Shia prove less responsible than they have to this point, and try to "Basra-ize" the rest of the nation, civil war could erupt.  (This, on top of other explosive issues involving the Kurds, Kirkuk and the collection and distribution of oil money.) 

In this interval between ballot victories and cabinet formation, what fascinates me are reactions from foreign observers--especially those who are turning their political convictions inside-out in order to discredit the Bush Administration.  A standard bit of this fare is "Have Iraqis voted for a dictatorship?"  asked by Muqtedar Khan in the Pakistani newspaper Daily Star.  And the ever-dependable Juan Cole rounds up various pundits--for example, Robin Wright in yesterday's Washington Post, Stanley Reed in Business Week --who point out that the Shia victors of the elections are not exactly the Jeffersonian democrats Washington hoped would take the reins of power.  This, of course, is the left's fall-back position on Iraq:  okay, the election went well, but before you war-mongering, Bush-excusing, in-the-pocket-of-Israel-and-Halliburton neo-conservative Christian triumphalists declare victory, look what you've wrought--a dictatorship in Iraq!

Yes, yes.  And where were these hand-wringing liberals during the Vietnam War?  When younger and more hirsute Coles of the day marched in solidarity with the NLF, did these concerns about totalitarianism not seem conspicuously absent?  If academics are so concerned about the loss of civil liberties, why do they continue to idolize Fidel Castro--not to mention Saint Che of Rosario?  Foucault, let us remember, endorsed the 1979 Iranian Revolution.  A few years later, when we young punk rockers were dancing to the Clash, did we ever concern ourselves with the Communist dictatorship they championed in Nicaragua?  Later still, how many leftists looked with alarm at Hong Kong's absorption by the fascist People's Republic of China? 

Once again, Iraq seems to fall outside the humanitarian regard of the left.  Among these bien pensants, reactionary gunmen are called "insurgents" or the "resistance" while a man brave enough to stand up to the fascists is considered a U.S. "puppet."  Then, astonishingly, when the Iraqis actually elect a government--no puppets, these Shias leader, nicht wahr?--these same voices look upon the victors with skepticism and fear. 

The hypocrisy cuts both ways, of course.  Neo-cons now talk the talk of free elections and feminism and civil rights--the very foundation blocks of democracy they put out of reach of other countries for decades during the Cold War, and continue to do so with nations like Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.  But at least we are on the correct side of history now--at least we stand for something.  The left put its energies into opposing the invasion of Iraq; it gave--and gives--tacit moral support to those who "resist" the liberation and reconstruction of the country; it poo-pooed elections and is now trying to downplay the results.  What does it want?  What alternatives does it put forth?  What does it bring to the discussion of the war and democracy besides a morbid and increasingly disquieting obsession with the "carnage"--to use Professor Cole's favorite word.  Where was their concern for the death of innocent people when the Communist Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia into a mass slaughter house?

The irony, of course, is that for all its faults and the imperfections of process and results, the Bush Administration is doing exactly what the left demanded of Washington during the Cold War:  let nations determine their own course.  If that course produces a Communist dictatorship, that is acceptable; should it produce any other form of government, that, apparently, is not.  Again, I ask:  why is Iraq different?

I don't mean to diminish the threat of an Islamic dictatorship:  it is indeed a serious issue, one that America's right- and left-wing progressives should unite to oppose.  I asked Nour a couple of days ago how she felt about the elections; with typical succinctness, she replied, "I feel terrible.  I see what the religious parties are doing to my liberal Basra."  No, the radical green flag flying over the citadels of Sindbad's former port of call is not a happy development.  It may be, however, the development a majority of the Iraqi people want.  And, this in turn, presents us with a dilemma involving majority will, civil rights, the notion of "illiberal democracy"--and perhaps the Arab mindset in general.  Sugar-coating matters in order to support the Bush Administration, or using it to bludgeon the architects of the war does nothing for America--and even less for the Iraqi people.

UPDATE:  Abbas Kadhim lists the percentage of women members of the new Assembly, per party slate.  A total of 58 about of 275 gives a percentage of over 20 percent.  (Notice the UIA:  32 percent; also note that the Kurds, who oppose shari'a did not hold to the "one-third" women rule).  For the record, 79  women hold seats in the U.S. Congress, for a total of 14.8 percent. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Reported to me by Nour in Basra and confirmed by Abbas Khadim, whose site I quote here:

Winners (based on 30,750 votes/seat):

The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA): 4,075,295 (132 seats)
The Kurdistan Alliance: 2,175,551 (71 seats)
The Iraqi List (PM Ayad Allawi): 1,168,943 (38 seats)
Iraqis or Iraqiyyoun (President Ghazi al-Yawer): 150,680 (5 seats)
The Turkomen Iraqi Front: 93,480 (3 seats)
National Independent Elites and Cadres Party: 69,938 --Surprise! (2 seats)
The Communist Party: 69,920 -- they expected to win big! (2 seats)
The Islamic Kurdish Society: 60,592 (2 seats)
The Islamic Labor Movement in Iraq (Shi'i): 43,205 (1 seat)
The National Democratic Alliance: 36,795 (1 seat)
National Rafidain List (Assyrian Christians): 36,255 (1 seat)
The Reconciliation and Liberation Entity (Sunni/nationalist): 30,796 (1 seat)

The number is not 275 seats yet. The balance of the seats will be distributed among the parties on the basis of their gains in total votes (whatever that means!)

Losers (no seats):

Iraqi Islamic Party (main Sunni group headed by Mohsen Abdel-Hamid): 21,342 -- they would have done much better had the Sunni Arabs voted in large numbers.
The Monarchy Movement (Jordan's best hope) 13,470
Assembly of Independent Democrats (headed by Sunni elder statesman Adnan Pachachi): 12,728
National Democratic Party (headed by Naseer Kamel al-Chaderchi, Sunni lawyer and member of the former Iraqi Governing Council): 1,603

Total votes: 8,550,571

Invalid votes: 94,305

And, giving credit was it's due, Juan Cole has an informative analysis.  (Ignore the pro forma egregious swipe at Bush.)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Symbols of sovereignty must be returned to the Iraqi people through their government.  The republican palace is one of the most important symbols, it must be returned to the Iraqi people.

--  Ahmad Chalabi, speaking to the New York Sun's Eli Lake, about the "International Zone" (a.k.a, the "Green Zone"), which sits in the center of the Baghdad, and his plan to open the heavily-guarded compound to city residents.

Chalabi evidently told Lake that he had "accepted an informal nomination to be prime minister" from "prominent members" of the United Iraqi Alliance list, the Shia slate which emerged victorious after the January 30 elections. 

One can't help agreeing with Chalabi about the Green Zone, and especially the Presidential Palace.  This structure--an unholy combination of Babylonian dimensions and Arabian kitsch, its construction and maintenance costs wrung from the blood of the Iraqi people--is the perfect symbol for Saddam's brutal psyche.  No better fate could befall it than transformation into offices for the new Iraqi government and a museum dedicate to the victims of the fallen regime.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Symbols of sovereignty must be returned to the Iraqi people through their government.  The republican palace is one of the most important symbols, it must be returned to the Iraqi people.

--  Ahmad Chalabi, speaking to the New York Sun's Eli Lake, about the "International Zone" (a.k.a, the "Green Zone"), which sits in the center of the Baghdad, and his plan to open the heavily-guarded compound to city residents.

Chalabi evidently told Lake that he had "accepted an informal nomination to be prime minister" from "prominent members" of the United Iraqi Alliance list, the Shia slate which emerged victorious after the January 30 elections. 

One can't help agreeing with Chalabi about the Green Zone, and especially the Presidential Palace.  This structure--an unholy combination of Babylonian dimensions and Arabian kitsch, its construction and maintenance costs wrung from the blood of the Iraqi people--is the perfect symbol for Saddam's brutal psyche.  No better fate could befall it than transformation into offices for the new Iraqi government and a museum dedicate to the victims of the fallen regime.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's slipped a bit below the media radar screen, but today another election takes place in the Middle East--in Saudi Arabia, of all places.

The Financial Times' Roula Khalaf reports that last-minute campaigning is still under way in the House of Saud's "first nationwide elections" in its history.  To give you an idea of how rare this occasion is, the mutawa'a, or religious police, actually relaxed their ban on public displays of advertisements bearing images of the human face to allow campaign posters. 

The elections, staggered over a period of three months, involve some 700 candidates running for Riyadh's city council.  Voters will choose only half the Saudi capital's municipal government, with half appointed by the government.  And, as Khalaf notes, the victors will have very limited powers.

Land ownership and distribution--a controversial issue because many plots are handed out to princes the al-Saud family--remain in the hands of the ministry of municipalities, which is headed by a royal. 

It may not surprise you to learn that the Saudis forbid women from running for office, or from voting.  Actually, this ban was a surprise of sorts to Saudi women, because the government had originally said that they could participate in the elections.  Indeed, according to the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terror website, in November, 2004, "at least three women" indicated they might run for a city council slot. 

But really, we should probably cut the Saudis a break here.  As Raid Qusti wrote in an Arab News op-ed last December entitled "Why Women's Voting Is Complicated," the logistics of allowing females to cast their ballots are very difficult indeed.  Why just imagine,

If a single woman won and became a member of the municipality council that would mean the government would have to construct a separate building for her.  Whether she one female, two or ten, Saudi law forbids men and women to work in the same establishment.

As OpinionJournal's James Taranto points out, this restriction could also ban men from serving in the Saudi government, but never mind.  As Qusti advises us, we need to look at Saudi Arabia "as a whole and weigh the reality of things."  What is the weight of absurdity, anyway?   

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's slipped a bit below the media radar screen, but today another election takes place in the Middle East--in Saudi Arabia, of all places.

The Financial Times' Roula Khalaf reports that last-minute campaigning is still under way in the House of Saud's "first nationwide elections" in its history.  To give you an idea of how rare this occasion is, the mutawa'a, or religious police, actually relaxed their ban on public displays of advertisements bearing images of the human face to allow campaign posters. 

The elections, staggered over a period of three months, involve some 700 candidates running for Riyadh's city council.  Voters will choose only half the Saudi capital's municipal government, with half appointed by the government.  And, as Khalaf notes, the victors will have very limited powers.

Land ownership and distribution--a controversial issue because many plots are handed out to princes the al-Saud family--remain in the hands of the ministry of municipalities, which is headed by a royal. 

It may not surprise you to learn that the Saudis forbid women from running for office, or from voting.  Actually, this ban was a surprise of sorts to Saudi women, because the government had originally said that they could participate in the elections.  Indeed, according to the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terror website, in November, 2004, "at least three women" indicated they might run for a city council slot. 

But really, we should probably cut the Saudis a break here.  As Raid Qusti wrote in an Arab News op-ed last December entitled "Why Women's Voting Is Complicated," the logistics of allowing females to cast their ballots are very difficult indeed.  Why just imagine,

If a single woman won and became a member of the municipality council that would mean the government would have to construct a separate building for her.  Whether she one female, two or ten, Saudi law forbids men and women to work in the same establishment.

As OpinionJournal's James Taranto points out, this restriction could also ban men from serving in the Saudi government, but never mind.  As Qusti advises us, we need to look at Saudi Arabia "as a whole and weigh the reality of things."  What is the weight of absurdity, anyway?   

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

They could never do enough, and always did too much.

That line often echoed in my thoughts as I traveled through Iraq between the fall of Saddam and the beginning of the serious "insurgency" a year later.  At the time, I was thinking of Iraqi attitudes toward the Coalition Provisional Authority--on one hand, anger that the U.S.-led "occupation" couldn't immediately solve the nation's problems; on the other, resentment at what they perceived as American manipulation of their affairs.  It struck me then, as now, as the verdict history will pass on America's post-Saddam reconstruction efforts in Iraq.      

It is also a plaint that runs through Lawrence Kaplan's cover story in the latest New Republic, "The Last Casualty:  the tragic end to a liberal Iraq."  A strong supporter of the war, Kaplan has written a forceful, angry piece that deserves serious consideration and reply.

His basic point is solid.  Squeezed between fascist terrorists and conservative religious parties, liberalism--or, a secular, pluralistic, progressive mindset (what Iraqi liberals themselves call "scientific")--has virtually vanished from the political spectrum.  After visiting the heavily guarded Baghdad home of one leading moderate, Kaplan poses the rhetoric question:  "How can there be liberalism in a country where liberals cannot leave their homes?"  Later, he notes

The war has sucked the oxygen out of the liberal experiment.  Iraqi opinion polls, for instance, which showed majorities favoring a secular state a year ago, show the reverse today--a poll by IRI [International Republican Institute] released last August reported that 70 percent of Iraqis would prefer an Islamic state.

This "Islamic state" is already taking form in Basra, according to reports.  Add to this a Sunni minority who would prefer to see the reinstatement of the Nazi-inspired Baath Party and the peril to "scientific" politics is clear.

Kaplan blames the U.S.  "Only stability can arrest these trends," he contends, adding,

When it comes to liberalism in Iraq, there's no getting around a simple truth:  NGOs do what they can; Iraqi liberals do what they can; but, in the end, only the U.S. military has the ability to create stability--and hence, democracy--here. 

In short, America's failure to stabilize the country after the fall of Saddam allowed an fascist insurgency and a religious uprising to take place in the center and southern portions of Iraq, crippling liberalism's chances to take root and flourish.  Worse, Kaplan notes, the CPA did very little to fund existing liberal organizations.  He notes that while certain NGOs have provided support for "scientific" organizations,

the U.S. Agency for International Development's signature $43 million program to support civil society has been tied up in bureaucratic knots for a year. 

Worse, Iran has provided $20 million to Shia religious parties, while Washington has declined to pick favorites, attempting to remain neutral and "evenhanded" as possible.  Writes Kaplan,

This may seem like evidence of high-mindedness.  But the United States boasts a long history of favoring pro-U.S. political organizations abroad.  The decision to do otherwise here reflects a broader logic of the U.S. mission:  Democracy first; liberalism later.

In short, Kaplan implies, America may have spent its blood and treasure help Iraq transform itself into what Fareed Zakaria calls an "illiberal democracy."

I can attest to much of what Kaplan says.  Human rights activists I spoke to in Baghdad and Basra frequently complained that the CPA offered them no funding, despite their many requests for aid.  Others--the Communists in particular--simply viewed the administration as favoring Iraqi exiles and corrupt religious and tribal leaders ensconced in the old Governing Council.   This, in turn, fueled suspicions among "scientific" Iraqis that the U.S. only wanted to establish a pliable Iraqi government that would offer access to the oil spigot. 

Still, as much as I respected and admired Iraqi liberals, I can't fully agree that the U.S. should have poured millions of dollars into financing their political ambitions.  To begin with, our military presence enraged thousands of Sunnis:  did we want our economic aid to alienate the Shia, especially their religious establishment--and, most importantly, Ayatollah Sistani?  We may not have "won" the Shia hearts and minds in this war, but we didn't exactly lose them, either.  By acting as a rival--or even an adversary--to Sistani's influence over his followers, we might have hardened the Hawza's line toward the U.S., and strengthened the hand of rebellious clerics such a Moqtada al-Sadr. 

But let us take Kaplan's prescription for liberalism to its logical conclusion.  The U.S., after establishing peace and security, funds "scientific" parties which then out-poll the Shia and Sunni religious parties in the January 30 elections to form a government.  What then?  Iraq has a regime that every nation in the Middle East and Europe, as well as conservative religious groups from Najaf to Detroit, immediately stamp as an extension of American foreign and military policy.  The suspicions of U.S. hegemony over oil-rich Muslim states takes on even more valence, intensifying anti-American sentiment and providing the world additional excuses not to assist the Iraqi people.

While the U.S. did make serious errors mistakes in liberating Iraq--too few troops being the worst--another, perhaps more important reason, exists for parlous state of liberalism in the country:  Iraqis aren't liberal.  This is a difficult matter for the neo-liberals of the New Republic to accept.  (In an editorial Peter Beinhart once criticized me for suggesting that rank-and-file Shia were "ungovernable" because of their religious fanaticism.  We shall see...)  Kaplan makes a pass at the point, noting that Iraqis are

burdened by the fact that, in a country with no liberal tradition, liberalism itself is a foreign concept.  The peculiarities of Arab culture, decades of life under Saddam Hussein, ethnic and religious rivalries--all have been offered by way of explaining why it is that, as State Department Iraq expert Alina Romanowski has put it, "Iraq present as unpromising a breeding ground for democracy as any in the world."

In many ways, Kaplan understates the case.  As I point out in In the Red Zone, Iraqis have a poor concept of the give-and-take and compromises that form democracy.  Worse, their sense of national identity is weak--for at least a quarter century Iraq was Saddam, and Saddam was Iraq; when the tyrant fell, a void opened in the national psyche.  To the surprise of we neo-cons, America found itself with a prostrate country not simply in need of "nation building"--but "identity building."  "The Iraqi mentality today is too much like the old Saddam mentality," said Haana Edwar, director of a Baghdad women's center.  "It is an agressive, broken mentality, unfit for democracy." 

Moreover, Kaplan overstates the practical capabilities of liberal Iraqis.  Even with all the funding in the world, I doubt that many of the "scientific" leaders I met could do more than rent out more spacious headquarters, print fancier programs or hire  larger fleets of cars.  As Juliani Yussef, editor-in-chief of Al-Ahkbar newspaper in Basra told me, "Secular parties have big membership lists, but few programs."

Furthermore, aside from the Communists, liberals simply had no idea of grassroots organizing.  How could they?  Iraqi society has no grassroots.   There are few voluntary associations or clubs; labor unions are practically non-existent; political parties only in their infancy--the whole society is an "armed camp," as a Kurdish man once told me.  "Saddam turned the Iraqi people in a bomb," a Baghdad cabbie said to me once.  "When he was removed, we exploded." 

Like it or not, Shia Islam is the best, or at least most effective, organizing principle currently operative in Iraq.  This is why we should thank Allah that a man with the sagacity and maturity of Ayatollah Sistani happen to dominate Najaf at the time of our invasion.  Make no mistake:  this man is no liberal, no Western-style advocate of individual rights--he is a conservative.  But he is no tyrant either, and he understands that Islam is not the solution to all the problems Iraq now faces. 

As for Basra, yes the situation there is unpleasant:  religious parties hold sway, women are forced to wear black hejab, Christians are increasingly unwelcome.  But to extrapolate conditions there throughout the country is a mistake.  Iraq is too diverse, the tradition of secularism too ingrained in the Iraqi people (thanks, in many ways, to Saddam and the Baath Party) and the Kurds too jealous of their secular autonomies for the country to morph into another Iran.  George Bush may not find himself dealing with the kind of new Iraqi leadership he planned for or wished, but that in itself may be a guarantee of sorts for success in Iraq:  no reasonable observer will be able to charge that the new Shia-dominated government in Baghdad is a puppet regime.

Neo-liberals like Kaplan wish America to intervene in Iraq's politics while somehow avoiding the taint of imperialism.  How is that possible?  In his own way, he is like Iraqis I met who demanded that the U.S. fix the infrastructure problems of their nation while simultaneously ending the "occupation."  Both present a no-win situation where America can never do enough, and will always do too much.

UPDATE:  Belmont Club has more thoughts on this subject, via Reuel Marc Gerecht and the Weekly Standard.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

They could never do enough, and always did too much.

That line often echoed in my thoughts as I traveled through Iraq between the fall of Saddam and the beginning of the serious "insurgency" a year later.  At the time, I was thinking of Iraqi attitudes toward the Coalition Provisional Authority--on one hand, anger that the U.S.-led "occupation" couldn't immediately solve the nation's problems; on the other, resentment at what they perceived as American manipulation of their affairs.  It struck me then, as now, as the verdict history will pass on America's post-Saddam reconstruction efforts in Iraq.      

It is also a plaint that runs through Lawrence Kaplan's cover story in the latest New Republic, "The Last Casualty:  the tragic end to a liberal Iraq."  A strong supporter of the war, Kaplan has written a forceful, angry piece that deserves serious consideration and reply.

His basic point is solid.  Squeezed between fascist terrorists and conservative religious parties, liberalism--or, a secular, pluralistic, progressive mindset (what Iraqi liberals themselves call "scientific")--has virtually vanished from the political spectrum.  After visiting the heavily guarded Baghdad home of one leading moderate, Kaplan poses the rhetoric question:  "How can there be liberalism in a country where liberals cannot leave their homes?"  Later, he notes

The war has sucked the oxygen out of the liberal experiment.  Iraqi opinion polls, for instance, which showed majorities favoring a secular state a year ago, show the reverse today--a poll by IRI [International Republican Institute] released last August reported that 70 percent of Iraqis would prefer an Islamic state.

This "Islamic state" is already taking form in Basra, according to reports.  Add to this a Sunni minority who would prefer to see the reinstatement of the Nazi-inspired Baath Party and the peril to "scientific" politics is clear.

Kaplan blames the U.S.  "Only stability can arrest these trends," he contends, adding,

When it comes to liberalism in Iraq, there's no getting around a simple truth:  NGOs do what they can; Iraqi liberals do what they can; but, in the end, only the U.S. military has the ability to create stability--and hence, democracy--here. 

In short, America's failure to stabilize the country after the fall of Saddam allowed an fascist insurgency and a religious uprising to take place in the center and southern portions of Iraq, crippling liberalism's chances to take root and flourish.  Worse, Kaplan notes, the CPA did very little to fund existing liberal organizations.  He notes that while certain NGOs have provided support for "scientific" organizations,

the U.S. Agency for International Development's signature $43 million program to support civil society has been tied up in bureaucratic knots for a year. 

Worse, Iran has provided $20 million to Shia religious parties, while Washington has declined to pick favorites, attempting to remain neutral and "evenhanded" as possible.  Writes Kaplan,

This may seem like evidence of high-mindedness.  But the United States boasts a long history of favoring pro-U.S. political organizations abroad.  The decision to do otherwise here reflects a broader logic of the U.S. mission:  Democracy first; liberalism later.

In short, Kaplan implies, America may have spent its blood and treasure help Iraq transform itself into what Fareed Zakaria calls an "illiberal democracy."

I can attest to much of what Kaplan says.  Human rights activists I spoke to in Baghdad and Basra frequently complained that the CPA offered them no funding, despite their many requests for aid.  Others--the Communists in particular--simply viewed the administration as favoring Iraqi exiles and corrupt religious and tribal leaders ensconced in the old Governing Council.   This, in turn, fueled suspicions among "scientific" Iraqis that the U.S. only wanted to establish a pliable Iraqi government that would offer access to the oil spigot. 

Still, as much as I respected and admired Iraqi liberals, I can't fully agree that the U.S. should have poured millions of dollars into financing their political ambitions.  To begin with, our military presence enraged thousands of Sunnis:  did we want our economic aid to alienate the Shia, especially their religious establishment--and, most importantly, Ayatollah Sistani?  We may not have "won" the Shia hearts and minds in this war, but we didn't exactly lose them, either.  By acting as a rival--or even an adversary--to Sistani's influence over his followers, we might have hardened the Hawza's line toward the U.S., and strengthened the hand of rebellious clerics such a Moqtada al-Sadr. 

But let us take Kaplan's prescription for liberalism to its logical conclusion.  The U.S., after establishing peace and security, funds "scientific" parties which then out-poll the Shia and Sunni religious parties in the January 30 elections to form a government.  What then?  Iraq has a regime that every nation in the Middle East and Europe, as well as conservative religious groups from Najaf to Detroit, immediately stamp as an extension of American foreign and military policy.  The suspicions of U.S. hegemony over oil-rich Muslim states takes on even more valence, intensifying anti-American sentiment and providing the world additional excuses not to assist the Iraqi people.

While the U.S. did make serious errors mistakes in liberating Iraq--too few troops being the worst--another, perhaps more important reason, exists for parlous state of liberalism in the country:  Iraqis aren't liberal.  This is a difficult matter for the neo-liberals of the New Republic to accept.  (In an editorial Peter Beinhart once criticized me for suggesting that rank-and-file Shia were "ungovernable" because of their religious fanaticism.  We shall see...)  Kaplan makes a pass at the point, noting that Iraqis are

burdened by the fact that, in a country with no liberal tradition, liberalism itself is a foreign concept.  The peculiarities of Arab culture, decades of life under Saddam Hussein, ethnic and religious rivalries--all have been offered by way of explaining why it is that, as State Department Iraq expert Alina Romanowski has put it, "Iraq present as unpromising a breeding ground for democracy as any in the world."

In many ways, Kaplan understates the case.  As I point out in In the Red Zone, Iraqis have a poor concept of the give-and-take and compromises that form democracy.  Worse, their sense of national identity is weak--for at least a quarter century Iraq was Saddam, and Saddam was Iraq; when the tyrant fell, a void opened in the national psyche.  To the surprise of we neo-cons, America found itself with a prostrate country not simply in need of "nation building"--but "identity building."  "The Iraqi mentality today is too much like the old Saddam mentality," said Haana Edwar, director of a Baghdad women's center.  "It is an agressive, broken mentality, unfit for democracy." 

Moreover, Kaplan overstates the practical capabilities of liberal Iraqis.  Even with all the funding in the world, I doubt that many of the "scientific" leaders I met could do more than rent out more spacious headquarters, print fancier programs or hire  larger fleets of cars.  As Juliani Yussef, editor-in-chief of Al-Ahkbar newspaper in Basra told me, "Secular parties have big membership lists, but few programs."

Furthermore, aside from the Communists, liberals simply had no idea of grassroots organizing.  How could they?  Iraqi society has no grassroots.   There are few voluntary associations or clubs; labor unions are practically non-existent; political parties only in their infancy--the whole society is an "armed camp," as a Kurdish man once told me.  "Saddam turned the Iraqi people in a bomb," a Baghdad cabbie said to me once.  "When he was removed, we exploded." 

Like it or not, Shia Islam is the best, or at least most effective, organizing principle currently operative in Iraq.  This is why we should thank Allah that a man with the sagacity and maturity of Ayatollah Sistani happen to dominate Najaf at the time of our invasion.  Make no mistake:  this man is no liberal, no Western-style advocate of individual rights--he is a conservative.  But he is no tyrant either, and he understands that Islam is not the solution to all the problems Iraq now faces. 

As for Basra, yes the situation there is unpleasant:  religious parties hold sway, women are forced to wear black hejab, Christians are increasingly unwelcome.  But to extrapolate conditions there throughout the country is a mistake.  Iraq is too diverse, the tradition of secularism too ingrained in the Iraqi people (thanks, in many ways, to Saddam and the Baath Party) and the Kurds too jealous of their secular autonomies for the country to morph into another Iran.  George Bush may not find himself dealing with the kind of new Iraqi leadership he planned for or wished, but that in itself may be a guarantee of sorts for success in Iraq:  no reasonable observer will be able to charge that the new Shia-dominated government in Baghdad is a puppet regime.

Neo-liberals like Kaplan wish America to intervene in Iraq's politics while somehow avoiding the taint of imperialism.  How is that possible?  In his own way, he is like Iraqis I met who demanded that the U.S. fix the infrastructure problems of their nation while simultaneously ending the "occupation."  Both present a no-win situation where America can never do enough, and will always do too much.

UPDATE:  Belmont Club has more thoughts on this subject, via Reuel Marc Gerecht and the Weekly Standard.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What was the voter turn-out in Iraq?  Common Consensus seems to have settled on 57 percent, but as I've been suggesting, critics have plausible grounds to lower the count below 50 percent.  The Daily Kos, exuding more sour grapes than a Tuscan winery, is guiding his readers toward this argument.  Yesterday, he linked to a piece on the Editor & Publisher website by Greg Mitchell, which addresses this issue.  First, Mitchell notes that in his initial statements, Farid Ayar, spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq claimed "as many as eight million," which the media (says Mitchell) "quickly translated as 'about eight million,' and then, inevitably, 'eight million.'"

Out of how many voters?  Well, the press has settled on 14 million.  But as Howard Kurtz has noted,

the 14 million figure is the number of registered Iraqis, while turnout is usually calculated using the number of eligible voters.  The number of adults in Iraq is probably closer to 18 million.

At 18 million, then, voter turn-out is around 45 percent.  Not bad, given the campaign of intimidation and coercion unleashed by the anti-Iraqi fascists.  But not the emotionally satisfying "over-50 percent" mark. 

"Election officials concede they did not have a reliable baselines on which to calculate turnout," Kurtz asserted.  Then, in an addition that must have warmed Zuniga's heart, Kurtz/Mitchell quoted Democratic strategist Robert Weiner: 

It's an amazing media error, a huge blinder.  I'm sure the Bush administration is thrilled by this spin.

Alright.  Possibly  8 million voters out of maybe 18 million who were eligible.  But wait.  Where do get the figure of 18 million?   Kurtz admitted he took the number based on some "approximations"  by experts.  On the other hand, writing in the New York Sun, Iraqi ex-pat Nibras Kazimi quotes an Iraqi man who believes that the turn-out was actually 80 percent.  Why?

[T]he estimated number of voters is based on the food-ration system. He avows that the numbers of food-ration cards are phony baloney. The system was rife with forgery in the 1990s and there are as many as 1.5 million fake names on these cards. During the sanctions era, many families understandably bribed the officials in charge of food dispensation in order to get more monthly provisions to sell on the black-market and purchase other foods not provided by the state.

In other words, there are less than 18 million--or maybe 14 million--eligible voters in Iraq, which, of course, would raise the turn-out totals.

My own feelings?  With all due respect to Mr. Kazimi, what worries me about the media coverage of the election was what it didn't show.  No, I don't mean the Sunnis.  I mean the millions of Iraqis who live in rural no-name villages, often no more than a collection of a few desolate hovels. The vast majority of these people are illiterate and live under the thumb of some tribal sheik; moreover, they do not dwell near the cities (and the hotels) where media types gather.  Where were these people?  Did they vote?  Where?  And are they counted on ration cards or any other means of measuring the Iraqi population?  One of the failings of reportage from Iraq (including mine, I'm afraid) has been the inability to penetrate into the deeper levels of the country's rural life.  I fear election coverage may have been no different.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 05:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What was the voter turn-out in Iraq?  Common Consensus seems to have settled on 57 percent, but as I've been suggesting, critics have plausible grounds to lower the count below 50 percent.  The Daily Kos, exuding more sour grapes than a Tuscan winery, is guiding his readers toward this argument.  Yesterday, he linked to a piece on the Editor & Publisher website by Greg Mitchell, which addresses this issue.  First, Mitchell notes that in his initial statements, Farid Ayar, spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq claimed "as many as eight million," which the media (says Mitchell) "quickly translated as 'about eight million,' and then, inevitably, 'eight million.'"

Out of how many voters?  Well, the press has settled on 14 million.  But as Howard Kurtz has noted,

the 14 million figure is the number of registered Iraqis, while turnout is usually calculated using the number of eligible voters.  The number of adults in Iraq is probably closer to 18 million.

At 18 million, then, voter turn-out is around 45 percent.  Not bad, given the campaign of intimidation and coercion unleashed by the anti-Iraqi fascists.  But not the emotionally satisfying "over-50 percent" mark. 

"Election officials concede they did not have a reliable baselines on which to calculate turnout," Kurtz asserted.  Then, in an addition that must have warmed Zuniga's heart, Kurtz/Mitchell quoted Democratic strategist Robert Weiner: 

It's an amazing media error, a huge blinder.  I'm sure the Bush administration is thrilled by this spin.

Alright.  Possibly  8 million voters out of maybe 18 million who were eligible.  But wait.  Where do get the figure of 18 million?   Kurtz admitted he took the number based on some "approximations"  by experts.  On the other hand, writing in the New York Sun, Iraqi ex-pat Nibras Kazimi quotes an Iraqi man who believes that the turn-out was actually 80 percent.  Why?

[T]he estimated number of voters is based on the food-ration system. He avows that the numbers of food-ration cards are phony baloney. The system was rife with forgery in the 1990s and there are as many as 1.5 million fake names on these cards. During the sanctions era, many families understandably bribed the officials in charge of food dispensation in order to get more monthly provisions to sell on the black-market and purchase other foods not provided by the state.

In other words, there are less than 18 million--or maybe 14 million--eligible voters in Iraq, which, of course, would raise the turn-out totals.

My own feelings?  With all due respect to Mr. Kazimi, what worries me about the media coverage of the election was what it didn't show.  No, I don't mean the Sunnis.  I mean the millions of Iraqis who live in rural no-name villages, often no more than a collection of a few desolate hovels. The vast majority of these people are illiterate and live under the thumb of some tribal sheik; moreover, they do not dwell near the cities (and the hotels) where media types gather.  Where were these people?  Did they vote?  Where?  And are they counted on ration cards or any other means of measuring the Iraqi population?  One of the failings of reportage from Iraq (including mine, I'm afraid) has been the inability to penetrate into the deeper levels of the country's rural life.  I fear election coverage may have been no different.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 05:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This e-mail is currently making the rounds in cyber-space.  It was written by Lieutenant Colonel Scott Stanger of the 1^st Cavalry Division, and was sent to me by a friend in the Marine Corps.  I present it here without comment

An Incredible Day. 

Today I got to witness first hand a new democracy take its first steps. My day started early....acutely my day started about 4 days ago because we have been going non-stop since then, hence no updates lately. I was up at 5am and my head was pounding and my sinuses were killing me. I was up and out with my team by 5:30am....I had to get at least one cup of coffee in me before I left. The day started slow and we had some small arms fire, 8 rockets shot at us, and we found one IED. The small arms fire and the rockets missed us. The IED was another matter, but we called our bomb guys and they took care of it with their bomb robot. Which, by the way, is their third robot. The first two died in the line of duty. The polls opened at 7am and that when things got interesting. 

The press showed up in droves. It would have been impossible to swing a dead cat and not hit a reporter in our  area of operation today. I met Campbell Brown from NBC.  She was likeable, but you could tell she did not want to be in Baghdad....she was very jumpy and looked a nervous. I guess we were that way when we first got here too but you get used to the shooting. Later, when we were dealing with the IED, a guy from PBS filmed the whole episode and told me that he was shooting a documentary for PBS. He had the camera in my face for about a half an hour while we got set to blow the IED. It is a little weird trying to get rid of a roadside bomb when guy has a camera in your face. I finally got him to leave me alone when I told him we were going to blow the bomb in place. Since the bomb was on a bridge there was no where to hide so I put him behind my armored hummer and he stayed put.  We blew the IED and the PBS guy left. 

We had very tight security on the polling sites and all around our area of operation. Iraqi police and Iraqi Army soldiers were at every polling site defending them. I have been planning for about 8 days for this mission and it was the largest we have done to date. Infantry, armor, attack helicopters, engineers.... you name it, we had it. The Iraqi government shut down all traffic in the country so the streets were deserted. At about 10am the streets were packed with large crowds of people walking to the polls. We were on edge waiting for more attacks that never came. By about 3pm we could start to let our hair down and talk to the people. The site was amazing.

We dismounted from our vehicles and were instantly mobbed by about 200 kids. The kids were all over the place playing in the streets while their parents voted. The kids walked with us for about 2 miles while we were talking to the adults.  I have never seen anything like it. People everywhere wanted to talk to us and thank us. This is what it must have been like when the Allies liberated Paris. Iraqis of all ages wanted to shake our hands and thank us for allowing them to vote. The kids were proud to tell us that their parents voted. Adult after adult wanted to thanks us for making this day happen. When the Iraqis voted they dipped their fingers in indelible purple ink so that polling officials could tell who had already voted. When we walked the streets the Iraqis would hold their purple finger up in the air as a mark of pride. They were very proud of their purple finger. The Iraqis statements to us were all the same; "Thank you for your sacrifices for the Iraqi people", "Thank you for making this day possible" The United States is the true democracy in the world and is the country that makes freedom possible", God blessed the Iraqi people and the United States this day", " We have never known a day like this under Saddam", "This day is like a great feast, a wonderful holiday". I shook more hands today then I have ever in my life. If you missed a hand they would follow for a mile to get a chance to shake and say thanks. It was nothing like we expected or have ever seen. The Iraqi people were strong and brave today. The Iraqis stoic to danger, faced fear, and went out and voted. Then after they voted the Iraqis stayed on the streets to celebrate by singing dancing and trying to shake the hand of any American that they could find. 

Even though today was a great day for Iraq, the Iraqis took their lumps. There were 6 car bombs in Iraq today, 2 of them in Baghdad. One I believe did more for Iraqi moral then any other event I that I have ever witnessed here. A suicide car bomber drove up to a polling site, which was not to far from us, and blew up. The bomb did not kill anybody but the bomber himself. After the bomb went off the Iraqi voters calmly walked out of the polling site and spit on the remains of the suicide bomber. The polling site stayed open and the voting continued. That incident ran all day long on Iraqi TV. It was a beautiful act of defiance for the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people stood up for themselves today and stuck a purple finger in the enemy's eye.           

Later in the day I thought about our sacrifices that we have made. I wondered if the three men that my unit has sent home in flag draped coffins was worth what I saw today. I am still not sure if that is the case, but when a grown Iraqi man thank me with tears running down his face it made me feel better about what we have accomplished. 

Scott

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This e-mail is currently making the rounds in cyber-space.  It was written by Lieutenant Colonel Scott Stanger of the 1^st Cavalry Division, and was sent to me by a friend in the Marine Corps.  I present it here without comment

An Incredible Day. 

Today I got to witness first hand a new democracy take its first steps. My day started early....acutely my day started about 4 days ago because we have been going non-stop since then, hence no updates lately. I was up at 5am and my head was pounding and my sinuses were killing me. I was up and out with my team by 5:30am....I had to get at least one cup of coffee in me before I left. The day started slow and we had some small arms fire, 8 rockets shot at us, and we found one IED. The small arms fire and the rockets missed us. The IED was another matter, but we called our bomb guys and they took care of it with their bomb robot. Which, by the way, is their third robot. The first two died in the line of duty. The polls opened at 7am and that when things got interesting. 

The press showed up in droves. It would have been impossible to swing a dead cat and not hit a reporter in our  area of operation today. I met Campbell Brown from NBC.  She was likeable, but you could tell she did not want to be in Baghdad....she was very jumpy and looked a nervous. I guess we were that way when we first got here too but you get used to the shooting. Later, when we were dealing with the IED, a guy from PBS filmed the whole episode and told me that he was shooting a documentary for PBS. He had the camera in my face for about a half an hour while we got set to blow the IED. It is a little weird trying to get rid of a roadside bomb when guy has a camera in your face. I finally got him to leave me alone when I told him we were going to blow the bomb in place. Since the bomb was on a bridge there was no where to hide so I put him behind my armored hummer and he stayed put.  We blew the IED and the PBS guy left. 

We had very tight security on the polling sites and all around our area of operation. Iraqi police and Iraqi Army soldiers were at every polling site defending them. I have been planning for about 8 days for this mission and it was the largest we have done to date. Infantry, armor, attack helicopters, engineers.... you name it, we had it. The Iraqi government shut down all traffic in the country so the streets were deserted. At about 10am the streets were packed with large crowds of people walking to the polls. We were on edge waiting for more attacks that never came. By about 3pm we could start to let our hair down and talk to the people. The site was amazing.

We dismounted from our vehicles and were instantly mobbed by about 200 kids. The kids were all over the place playing in the streets while their parents voted. The kids walked with us for about 2 miles while we were talking to the adults.  I have never seen anything like it. People everywhere wanted to talk to us and thank us. This is what it must have been like when the Allies liberated Paris. Iraqis of all ages wanted to shake our hands and thank us for allowing them to vote. The kids were proud to tell us that their parents voted. Adult after adult wanted to thanks us for making this day happen. When the Iraqis voted they dipped their fingers in indelible purple ink so that polling officials could tell who had already voted. When we walked the streets the Iraqis would hold their purple finger up in the air as a mark of pride. They were very proud of their purple finger. The Iraqis statements to us were all the same; "Thank you for your sacrifices for the Iraqi people", "Thank you for making this day possible" The United States is the true democracy in the world and is the country that makes freedom possible", God blessed the Iraqi people and the United States this day", " We have never known a day like this under Saddam", "This day is like a great feast, a wonderful holiday". I shook more hands today then I have ever in my life. If you missed a hand they would follow for a mile to get a chance to shake and say thanks. It was nothing like we expected or have ever seen. The Iraqi people were strong and brave today. The Iraqis stoic to danger, faced fear, and went out and voted. Then after they voted the Iraqis stayed on the streets to celebrate by singing dancing and trying to shake the hand of any American that they could find. 

Even though today was a great day for Iraq, the Iraqis took their lumps. There were 6 car bombs in Iraq today, 2 of them in Baghdad. One I believe did more for Iraqi moral then any other event I that I have ever witnessed here. A suicide car bomber drove up to a polling site, which was not to far from us, and blew up. The bomb did not kill anybody but the bomber himself. After the bomb went off the Iraqi voters calmly walked out of the polling site and spit on the remains of the suicide bomber. The polling site stayed open and the voting continued. That incident ran all day long on Iraqi TV. It was a beautiful act of defiance for the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people stood up for themselves today and stuck a purple finger in the enemy's eye.           

Later in the day I thought about our sacrifices that we have made. I wondered if the three men that my unit has sent home in flag draped coffins was worth what I saw today. I am still not sure if that is the case, but when a grown Iraqi man thank me with tears running down his face it made me feel better about what we have accomplished. 

Scott

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Explosion of the day of elections

-- official explanation of death on the death certificate of Naim Rahim Yacoubi

The New York Times often serves as a favored target for people irritated by its Overclass condescension, but occasionally it gets things right.  Case in point is yesterday's superb story by Edward Wong headlined "Iraqis Who Died While Daring to Vote Are Mourned as Martyrs."

Wong focuses on some of the nearly 50 "victims of election day violence" whom Iraqis honor as people who gave their lives for democracy.  Writes Wong,

They were policemen who tried to stop suicide bombers from entering polling centers, children who walked with elderly parents to cast votes, or--in the case of Mr. Yacoubi--a fishmonger who, after voting, took tea from his house to electoral workers at the school.

Wong quotes a neighbor of Naim Yacoubi:

All of us talked about the elections.  We were waiting impatiently for this day so we could finally rid ourselves of all our troubles.  Naim was just like any Iraqi who hoped for a better future for Iraq, who wanted stability for Iraq.  We hoped that after the elections, the American forces would withdraw from our country.

After voting at 8:30 a.m., Mr. Yacoubi, "impressed by the dedication of the election workers," returned to the Baghdad voting site with tea.  He had just dropped off the glasses when a suicide bomb exploded.  At Mr. Yacoubi's burial in the holy cemetery of Najaf, a family friend said to Wong,

It's not the man who exploded himself who's a martyr.  He wasn't a true Muslim.  This is the martyr. What religion asks people to blow themselves up?  It's not written in the Koran.

The neighbor added,

This is the courage of Iraqis, and we will change the face of history.  This is our message to the countries of the world, especially those that are still under a dictatorship and want to walk the same road as the Iraqis.

Another martyr was Adil al-Nassar, a forty year old policeman who had joined the service a year ago.  At a voting site in Baghdad he tackled a suicide bomber who had leaped in a line of women.  The bomb exploded, killing Officer Nassar and several other people.  Despite the explosion, voters returned to the site as if nothing had happened.  Said the policeman's father-in-law,

He's a martyr now.  He saved many lives for the greater good.

Words cannot describe the magnificence of this spirit.

Nor can words convey the obscenity of the anti-Iraqi forces.  From the Sydney Morning Herald we learn that one of the "suicide" bombers was in fact a 19 year-old man with Downs Syndrome.  Amar Ahmen Mohammad had the mind of a four-year old, but that didn't stop the courageous sons from strapping explosives onto him and sending toward a Baghdad polling site.  Perhaps misunderstanding his instructions, Mohammad detonated his device early, killing only himself.

He, too, must be numbered among the martyrs of Election Day. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Explosion of the day of elections

-- official explanation of death on the death certificate of Naim Rahim Yacoubi

The New York Times often serves as a favored target for people irritated by its Overclass condescension, but occasionally it gets things right.  Case in point is yesterday's superb story by Edward Wong headlined "Iraqis Who Died While Daring to Vote Are Mourned as Martyrs."

Wong focuses on some of the nearly 50 "victims of election day violence" whom Iraqis honor as people who gave their lives for democracy.  Writes Wong,

They were policemen who tried to stop suicide bombers from entering polling centers, children who walked with elderly parents to cast votes, or--in the case of Mr. Yacoubi--a fishmonger who, after voting, took tea from his house to electoral workers at the school.

Wong quotes a neighbor of Naim Yacoubi:

All of us talked about the elections.  We were waiting impatiently for this day so we could finally rid ourselves of all our troubles.  Naim was just like any Iraqi who hoped for a better future for Iraq, who wanted stability for Iraq.  We hoped that after the elections, the American forces would withdraw from our country.

After voting at 8:30 a.m., Mr. Yacoubi, "impressed by the dedication of the election workers," returned to the Baghdad voting site with tea.  He had just dropped off the glasses when a suicide bomb exploded.  At Mr. Yacoubi's burial in the holy cemetery of Najaf, a family friend said to Wong,

It's not the man who exploded himself who's a martyr.  He wasn't a true Muslim.  This is the martyr. What religion asks people to blow themselves up?  It's not written in the Koran.

The neighbor added,

This is the courage of Iraqis, and we will change the face of history.  This is our message to the countries of the world, especially those that are still under a dictatorship and want to walk the same road as the Iraqis.

Another martyr was Adil al-Nassar, a forty year old policeman who had joined the service a year ago.  At a voting site in Baghdad he tackled a suicide bomber who had leaped in a line of women.  The bomb exploded, killing Officer Nassar and several other people.  Despite the explosion, voters returned to the site as if nothing had happened.  Said the policeman's father-in-law,

He's a martyr now.  He saved many lives for the greater good.

Words cannot describe the magnificence of this spirit.

Nor can words convey the obscenity of the anti-Iraqi forces.  From the Sydney Morning Herald we learn that one of the "suicide" bombers was in fact a 19 year-old man with Downs Syndrome.  Amar Ahmen Mohammad had the mind of a four-year old, but that didn't stop the courageous sons from strapping explosives onto him and sending toward a Baghdad polling site.  Perhaps misunderstanding his instructions, Mohammad detonated his device early, killing only himself.

He, too, must be numbered among the martyrs of Election Day. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

UN-enthusiastic

The New York Sun's Benny Avi wrote on January 27 that U.N. officials criticized U.S. troops for helping "Iraqi officials distribute information on the electoral process to Iraqi citizens" and for encouraging them "to participate in Sunday's vote."

Head of the U.N. Electoral Assistance Division Carina Perelli said in a press conference that the U.N. officials were

asking, begging military commanders precisely not to do that...the Americans were "overenthusiastic" in trying to help out with these elections.  We have basically been saying they should try to minimize their participation...

Like the U.N. itself, which stationed a grand total of 22 observers in Baghdad.

In response, a Pentagon spokesman told Avi, "There are 150,000 U.S. troops as of the coalition in Iraq, who are there to do a number of things but primary among them is to help the Iraqis hold their own elections."

*

Not a "voter boycott"--"voter supression"

In Baghdad, according to the Financial Times'  Neil MacDonald and Awadh al-Taee, nearly 50 percent of the listed voters in the heavily Sunni neighborhood of al-Ameriya turned out to cast their ballots.  Across a highway from the district is the headquarters of the Muslims Scholars Association, which had called for a "boycott" of the voting. 

Al-Ameriya voters were evidently unswayed by this graffiti message scrawled on the walls of the polling station:

We will kill anyone who goes to the elections.  We will kill you for treason and spying.

Interesting definition of "treason."  In any case, combining insurgent bravado with faith in democracy, one voter proclaimed to the FT: 

I am a suicide voter...We need to have steadfastness as a people...because our country needs a future.

*

Occupational benefits

Although it was written last November, this comment by Jordanian columnist Salameh Nematt bears repeating:

It is outrageous and amazing that the first free and general elections in the history of the Arab nation are to take place in January: in Iraq, under the auspices of American occupation, and in Palestine, under the auspices of the Israeli occupation.

*

Sadr but wiser

A few months ago, Moqtada al-Sadr issued this fatwa:

The elections aim to separate the Iraqi from his religion.  When people vote for politicians, secularists, those who co-operate with the occupation--they will not think of God.

More to the point, they won't think of Moqtada al-Sadr.  Which is exactly what happened:  yesterday's Wall Street Journal reported that in Mookie's stronghold of Sadr City,

turnout so vastly exceeded expectations that workers had to request more ballot boxes.  One polling station planned for an estimated 2,800 voters.  By 9:30 a.m., more than 1,000 people already had shown up.

As I observed yesterday, a Shia marjah's elevation in the clerical ranks is largely determined by the number of people who follow his fatwas.  One of al-Sadr's aims has been to challenge Sistani's leadership of the Hawza, the Shia's Najaf-based religious authority.  The repudiation of his views by the population of his own base is a devastating blow to his prestige and another sign of how firmly Sistani is control of the Shia's clerical leadership.

*

Good paramilitaries?

Also from yesterday's Journal, this rather disturbing news, contextualized in an odd way by writer Greg Jaffe:

The Iraqis' enthusiasm for the elections was perhaps best expressed by the homegrown militias--many formed by Iraqis in just the past few weeks--to secure the polls.

One of those groups, which called itself the Defenders of Baghdad Brigade, appeared out of nowhere about a month ago, setting up camps around Baghdad's Martyrs' Monument...U.S. officials supplied them with rifles, ammunition and body armor.  Less than three weeks later, they were out on Election Day guarding polling sites.

A second militia from the town of Amarah, a Shiite city in southern Iraq, set up shop in early January in Baghdad's old Defense Ministry...

"These groups just started appearing like mushrooms.  In the last month, they have been appearing so quickly that we can barely keep track of them," Lt. Col. Jim Bullion said.  "U.S. military officials say they aren't sure what will happen to these groups after the elections."

Whoa, wait a minute.  Aren't we in the business disarming militias--rather than equipping them?  On whose authority was this done?  Who watched these groups?  What did they do after the elections with their U.S.-issued guns and ammo--turn them back?  I doubt it.  We can guess these mushrooming paramilitaries were Shia in orientation--a sign of what could easily happen if alienation takes root among their people and they decide to take up arms.  No Iraqi government can ever achieve full security until it monopolizes the use of force.  Encouraging paramilitary groups--let along arming them--is not the way to achieve this.

*

Oil slick

The U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraqi reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, has issued a damning report accusing the CPA of failing to adequately account for nearly nine billion dollars in oil revenues it gave to Iraqi ministries.  For more of this "Oil-for-God-Knows-What" scandal see my earlier post "Crude Business."

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

UN-enthusiastic

The New York Sun's Benny Avi wrote on January 27 that U.N. officials criticized U.S. troops for helping "Iraqi officials distribute information on the electoral process to Iraqi citizens" and for encouraging them "to participate in Sunday's vote."

Head of the U.N. Electoral Assistance Division Carina Perelli said in a press conference that the U.N. officials were

asking, begging military commanders precisely not to do that...the Americans were "overenthusiastic" in trying to help out with these elections.  We have basically been saying they should try to minimize their participation...

Like the U.N. itself, which stationed a grand total of 22 observers in Baghdad.

In response, a Pentagon spokesman told Avi, "There are 150,000 U.S. troops as of the coalition in Iraq, who are there to do a number of things but primary among them is to help the Iraqis hold their own elections."

*

Not a "voter boycott"--"voter supression"

In Baghdad, according to the Financial Times'  Neil MacDonald and Awadh al-Taee, nearly 50 percent of the listed voters in the heavily Sunni neighborhood of al-Ameriya turned out to cast their ballots.  Across a highway from the district is the headquarters of the Muslims Scholars Association, which had called for a "boycott" of the voting. 

Al-Ameriya voters were evidently unswayed by this graffiti message scrawled on the walls of the polling station:

We will kill anyone who goes to the elections.  We will kill you for treason and spying.

Interesting definition of "treason."  In any case, combining insurgent bravado with faith in democracy, one voter proclaimed to the FT: 

I am a suicide voter...We need to have steadfastness as a people...because our country needs a future.

*

Occupational benefits

Although it was written last November, this comment by Jordanian columnist Salameh Nematt bears repeating:

It is outrageous and amazing that the first free and general elections in the history of the Arab nation are to take place in January: in Iraq, under the auspices of American occupation, and in Palestine, under the auspices of the Israeli occupation.

*

Sadr but wiser

A few months ago, Moqtada al-Sadr issued this fatwa:

The elections aim to separate the Iraqi from his religion.  When people vote for politicians, secularists, those who co-operate with the occupation--they will not think of God.

More to the point, they won't think of Moqtada al-Sadr.  Which is exactly what happened:  yesterday's Wall Street Journal reported that in Mookie's stronghold of Sadr City,

turnout so vastly exceeded expectations that workers had to request more ballot boxes.  One polling station planned for an estimated 2,800 voters.  By 9:30 a.m., more than 1,000 people already had shown up.

As I observed yesterday, a Shia marjah's elevation in the clerical ranks is largely determined by the number of people who follow his fatwas.  One of al-Sadr's aims has been to challenge Sistani's leadership of the Hawza, the Shia's Najaf-based religious authority.  The repudiation of his views by the population of his own base is a devastating blow to his prestige and another sign of how firmly Sistani is control of the Shia's clerical leadership.

*

Good paramilitaries?

Also from yesterday's Journal, this rather disturbing news, contextualized in an odd way by writer Greg Jaffe:

The Iraqis' enthusiasm for the elections was perhaps best expressed by the homegrown militias--many formed by Iraqis in just the past few weeks--to secure the polls.

One of those groups, which called itself the Defenders of Baghdad Brigade, appeared out of nowhere about a month ago, setting up camps around Baghdad's Martyrs' Monument...U.S. officials supplied them with rifles, ammunition and body armor.  Less than three weeks later, they were out on Election Day guarding polling sites.

A second militia from the town of Amarah, a Shiite city in southern Iraq, set up shop in early January in Baghdad's old Defense Ministry...

"These groups just started appearing like mushrooms.  In the last month, they have been appearing so quickly that we can barely keep track of them," Lt. Col. Jim Bullion said.  "U.S. military officials say they aren't sure what will happen to these groups after the elections."

Whoa, wait a minute.  Aren't we in the business disarming militias--rather than equipping them?  On whose authority was this done?  Who watched these groups?  What did they do after the elections with their U.S.-issued guns and ammo--turn them back?  I doubt it.  We can guess these mushrooming paramilitaries were Shia in orientation--a sign of what could easily happen if alienation takes root among their people and they decide to take up arms.  No Iraqi government can ever achieve full security until it monopolizes the use of force.  Encouraging paramilitary groups--let along arming them--is not the way to achieve this.

*

Oil slick

The U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraqi reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, has issued a damning report accusing the CPA of failing to adequately account for nearly nine billion dollars in oil revenues it gave to Iraqi ministries.  For more of this "Oil-for-God-Knows-What" scandal see my earlier post "Crude Business."

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(note:  you can also catch this piece on the Adventures of Chester, where I'm concluding a four-day stint as a guest blogger.  Go there, and if you haven't already, make it a daily habit, like I have.)

As is the wont of things, after the euphoria comes the sobering reminder that a single success does not solve a multitude of problems.  Nowhere is this truer than Iraq.  With the risk of seeing like dreary chunk of Juan Cole in the Christmas stocking of Iraq's elections, let me outline some of the challenges immediately facing the Land Between the Rivers.

The Kurds.  The flashpoint is the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk.  Here, Kurds are vying against Sunni Arabs and their Turkomen allies for control of the oil fields of Baba Gurgur.  Although Kirkuk technically falls outside Kurdistan, the Kurds have long eyed the city as the capital of an independent nation.   When the Iraqi Electoral Commission last month ruled that Kurds displaced by the Baath Party's "Arabization" program could vote in local elections, Arab candidates withdrew.  Turkey, meanwhile, is registering ominous objections to Kurdish maneuvering for autonomy.  Kurdish Democratic Party leader Massud Barzani hardly helped matters when he announced in a recent interview that "an independent Kurdish state is indeed going to be happening."

The Shia.  Of immediate interest is the post-election unity of the victorious Party of Ali.  As the Los Angeles Times' Ashraf Khalil notes, the United Iraqi Alliance fused together by Ayatollah Sistani comprises a number of religious and secular Shia groups, many of which--such as Dawa Islamiyya and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq--are traditional rivals.  As Khalil observes, a splintering of the slate could provide an opportunity to secularists like Ayad Allawi to pick up some dissenting Shia to form a ruling coalition; on the other hand, a collapse of unity risks weakening the prestige of Sistani (the most unifying figure today in Iraqi politics) and alienating Shia from the democratic process. 

Other things to look for:  The fate of Moqtada "Mookie" al-Sadr.  He was a big loser yesterday--especially because his fatwa to boycott the elections was generally ignored.  In the Shia world, one's advancement in influence and power is determined by how many people pay attention to your pronouncements (rather like blogging); he may have slid a ways down the marja totem pole.  Also, keep an eye on Ahmad Chalabi.  While fighting Defense Minister Shaalan over mutual corruption charges and the Arabists in the State Department and CIA, this consummate in-fighter seems posed to play an important role in the new "secular" face of the Shia leadership.  He didn't do much for Iraqi unity last week, however, when he seemed to call for Shia "autonomy" over the oil-rich southern provinces.

The Sunnis.  We'll have to see their turn-out totals, especially in areas not dominated by anti-Iraqi forces.  If it turns out, as I believe true, that Sunnis wanted to vote, but were prevented by fear, the "voter boycott" was in fact "voter suppression."  And this, in turn, could erode the legitimacy of the Muslims Scholar's Association's "leadership"--a positive development.  The MSA's politics of resentment, grievance and non-participation in democracy (with the telling exception of oil-rich Kirkuk) echo the PLO tactics and could doom the Sunnis to similar cycles of despair and violence.  To save their clerical skins, the MSA and their allies will use any sliver of plausibility to decry the elections as illegitimate (especially if voter turn-out results drop below 50 percent).  But even they seem to see less room for maneuvering, as evident in their demands that they have a seat at table when it comes time to hammer out a constitution.  Sunnis, thy name is chutzpah.

The Anti-Iraq forces.  Allah be praised, they were the biggest losers of the day--although there will no doubt be further attacks.  But the political, rhetorical and psychological terrain has changed.  In the past, the homegrown Iraqi militants got a lot of mileage from their claims that they fought a "foreign occupation."  Whatever little merit that argument possessed has vanished with the election:  now the ex-Baathist Saddamites appear in their true light--fascists attempting to overturn a democratic government.  At what temperature does the legitimacy of reactionaries burn?  Fahrenheit 9-11. 

As for the foreign jihadists, Z-Man declared war against the elections and then couldn't stop them.  History--despite what would-be restorers of the Caliphate might say--is not on his side.  The fighting will continue--that's what jihadists do, after all--but the legitimacy of the mujaheddin has been shot by ballots not bullets, and time will bring an end to their nihilistic bloodshed.  This isn't Afghanistan, 1990s, Z-Man, and you're not fighting a doomed dictatorial state.  Something you will no doubt reflect upon when you're sitting in an Iraqi prison, as you will most surely be soon.

The Left.  Hopeless.  Shameful.  History will record that the U.S. could have saved tremendous loss of life and treasure had we liberated Iraqi with more troops and a proper "after-victory" plan.  But the chronicles will also show that America could have saved time, money and--most especially, lives--had the Left contributed its valuable resources to the liberation effort as well.  Imagine if feminists, labor leaders, environmentalists, civil rights activists, artists and the media had joined in the struggle instead of sitting on the sidelines--or worse, assisting the fascists?  Imagine if the clarion cry of freedom and democracy had arisen from a unified progressive front consisting of conservatives and liberals?  Just as we've learned how much succor the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong took from the anti-war protesters of the 1960s, we will someday learn how the parochial, small-minded, narrow-souled opposition to the establishment of democracy in Iraq stiffen the fascist backbone of the "insurgency."  But of course, the Michael Moores, Robert Fisks, George Galloways, Ted Kennedys and innumerable Hollywood celebrities and academics of this world will not care--they will always find reporters, voters, fans and tenure committees willing to dull the sting of conscience.

Our soldiers.  Job well done.  But it ain't over till its over.  And it won't be over until Iraq reaches one benchmark:  the government has the monopoly on violence.  In other words, not until an Iraqi army and police force takes the guns away--literally or metaphorically--from the country too-many armed militias can our men and women go home. 

The Iraqi people.  From now on, we will identify the true Iraqi Resistance fighter as an average man or woman brandishing the weapon of a blue-tipped index finger.

Bloggers.  I can't imagine how the liberation of Iraq would have progressed without the hundreds, the thousands, of blogs that cut through the anti-war bias of the MSM.  By giving a voice to people and viewpoints which otherwise would have gone silent, bloggers helped articulate the cause of democracy and civil rights that lies at the base of this conflict.  Which make me wonder:  how would bloggers have affected the course of Vietnam War?

On that note, I will close out my guest appearance on Chester.  I can't thank Josh enough for the opportunity to address you all.  I only hope my contributions added something to your appreciation of the war, the election and the Iraqi people. Now, with a wave of my own blue-tipped fingertips, I shall bid you farewell.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(note:  you can also catch this piece on the Adventures of Chester, where I'm concluding a four-day stint as a guest blogger.  Go there, and if you haven't already, make it a daily habit, like I have.)

As is the wont of things, after the euphoria comes the sobering reminder that a single success does not solve a multitude of problems.  Nowhere is this truer than Iraq.  With the risk of seeing like dreary chunk of Juan Cole in the Christmas stocking of Iraq's elections, let me outline some of the challenges immediately facing the Land Between the Rivers.

The Kurds.  The flashpoint is the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk.  Here, Kurds are vying against Sunni Arabs and their Turkomen allies for control of the oil fields of Baba Gurgur.  Although Kirkuk technically falls outside Kurdistan, the Kurds have long eyed the city as the capital of an independent nation.   When the Iraqi Electoral Commission last month ruled that Kurds displaced by the Baath Party's "Arabization" program could vote in local elections, Arab candidates withdrew.  Turkey, meanwhile, is registering ominous objections to Kurdish maneuvering for autonomy.  Kurdish Democratic Party leader Massud Barzani hardly helped matters when he announced in a recent interview that "an independent Kurdish state is indeed going to be happening."

The Shia.  Of immediate interest is the post-election unity of the victorious Party of Ali.  As the Los Angeles Times' Ashraf Khalil notes, the United Iraqi Alliance fused together by Ayatollah Sistani comprises a number of religious and secular Shia groups, many of which--such as Dawa Islamiyya and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq--are traditional rivals.  As Khalil observes, a splintering of the slate could provide an opportunity to secularists like Ayad Allawi to pick up some dissenting Shia to form a ruling coalition; on the other hand, a collapse of unity risks weakening the prestige of Sistani (the most unifying figure today in Iraqi politics) and alienating Shia from the democratic process. 

Other things to look for:  The fate of Moqtada "Mookie" al-Sadr.  He was a big loser yesterday--especially because his fatwa to boycott the elections was generally ignored.  In the Shia world, one's advancement in influence and power is determined by how many people pay attention to your pronouncements (rather like blogging); he may have slid a ways down the marja totem pole.  Also, keep an eye on Ahmad Chalabi.  While fighting Defense Minister Shaalan over mutual corruption charges and the Arabists in the State Department and CIA, this consummate in-fighter seems posed to play an important role in the new "secular" face of the Shia leadership.  He didn't do much for Iraqi unity last week, however, when he seemed to call for Shia "autonomy" over the oil-rich southern provinces.

The Sunnis.  We'll have to see their turn-out totals, especially in areas not dominated by anti-Iraqi forces.  If it turns out, as I believe true, that Sunnis wanted to vote, but were prevented by fear, the "voter boycott" was in fact "voter suppression."  And this, in turn, could erode the legitimacy of the Muslims Scholar's Association's "leadership"--a positive development.  The MSA's politics of resentment, grievance and non-participation in democracy (with the telling exception of oil-rich Kirkuk) echo the PLO tactics and could doom the Sunnis to similar cycles of despair and violence.  To save their clerical skins, the MSA and their allies will use any sliver of plausibility to decry the elections as illegitimate (especially if voter turn-out results drop below 50 percent).  But even they seem to see less room for maneuvering, as evident in their demands that they have a seat at table when it comes time to hammer out a constitution.  Sunnis, thy name is chutzpah.

The Anti-Iraq forces.  Allah be praised, they were the biggest losers of the day--although there will no doubt be further attacks.  But the political, rhetorical and psychological terrain has changed.  In the past, the homegrown Iraqi militants got a lot of mileage from their claims that they fought a "foreign occupation."  Whatever little merit that argument possessed has vanished with the election:  now the ex-Baathist Saddamites appear in their true light--fascists attempting to overturn a democratic government.  At what temperature does the legitimacy of reactionaries burn?  Fahrenheit 9-11. 

As for the foreign jihadists, Z-Man declared war against the elections and then couldn't stop them.  History--despite what would-be restorers of the Caliphate might say--is not on his side.  The fighting will continue--that's what jihadists do, after all--but the legitimacy of the mujaheddin has been shot by ballots not bullets, and time will bring an end to their nihilistic bloodshed.  This isn't Afghanistan, 1990s, Z-Man, and you're not fighting a doomed dictatorial state.  Something you will no doubt reflect upon when you're sitting in an Iraqi prison, as you will most surely be soon.

The Left.  Hopeless.  Shameful.  History will record that the U.S. could have saved tremendous loss of life and treasure had we liberated Iraqi with more troops and a proper "after-victory" plan.  But the chronicles will also show that America could have saved time, money and--most especially, lives--had the Left contributed its valuable resources to the liberation effort as well.  Imagine if feminists, labor leaders, environmentalists, civil rights activists, artists and the media had joined in the struggle instead of sitting on the sidelines--or worse, assisting the fascists?  Imagine if the clarion cry of freedom and democracy had arisen from a unified progressive front consisting of conservatives and liberals?  Just as we've learned how much succor the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong took from the anti-war protesters of the 1960s, we will someday learn how the parochial, small-minded, narrow-souled opposition to the establishment of democracy in Iraq stiffen the fascist backbone of the "insurgency."  But of course, the Michael Moores, Robert Fisks, George Galloways, Ted Kennedys and innumerable Hollywood celebrities and academics of this world will not care--they will always find reporters, voters, fans and tenure committees willing to dull the sting of conscience.

Our soldiers.  Job well done.  But it ain't over till its over.  And it won't be over until Iraq reaches one benchmark:  the government has the monopoly on violence.  In other words, not until an Iraqi army and police force takes the guns away--literally or metaphorically--from the country too-many armed militias can our men and women go home. 

The Iraqi people.  From now on, we will identify the true Iraqi Resistance fighter as an average man or woman brandishing the weapon of a blue-tipped index finger.

Bloggers.  I can't imagine how the liberation of Iraq would have progressed without the hundreds, the thousands, of blogs that cut through the anti-war bias of the MSM.  By giving a voice to people and viewpoints which otherwise would have gone silent, bloggers helped articulate the cause of democracy and civil rights that lies at the base of this conflict.  Which make me wonder:  how would bloggers have affected the course of Vietnam War?

On that note, I will close out my guest appearance on Chester.  I can't thank Josh enough for the opportunity to address you all.  I only hope my contributions added something to your appreciation of the war, the election and the Iraqi people. Now, with a wave of my own blue-tipped fingertips, I shall bid you farewell.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Grand Imperial Wizard of Iraq

Before we get to the good news, check out this weird Times headline:

Violence Fails to Spoil a Party Atmosphere on Baghdad's Streets

What's the point of mentioning...?  Oh never mind.  What do we call a reverse "Damning But?"

Anyway, reporter Dexter Filkins goes on to write that the Independent Election Commission of Iraq estimates turn out at eight million people, or 57 percent.  Then he goes from the fantastic to the incredible:

The predicted low turnout in Anbar, a hotspot of Sunni resistance to the American occupation, was exceeded to such an extent that extra voting materials had to be rushed to outlying villages, where long lines were formed at polling stations, Mr. Ayar said.

Ready, set, go, bloggers.  Now we have to pile on the "boycott" meme.  We have to change the discourse:  It was no "voter boycott" the Muslim Scholars Asscociation was attempting, but "voter suppression."  Harith al-Dhari's group does not represent the Sunni people any more than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi does. These people are shams, phonies, liars, murderes.  And they lost.

To put their activities in another perspective:  The Muslim Scholars Association and Zarqawi's "Al Qaeda in Iraq" franchise attempted to do to the Sunni Arabs what Jim Crow laws and the KKK inflicted for decades on African-Americans in the South:  rob them of their freedom, dignity and inalienable human rights.  We can't say it enough:  this war is about civil rights in Iraq.  

Hmmm, where's all that talk about the "Resistance" now?

UPDATE:  Be prepared.  Final voter turn-out percentages may be dropping.  Could we go below 50 percent?  Still a victory for democracy, of course, but also possibilities for face-saving spin for the terrorists, the Sunni clerical establishment and Juan Cole.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Grand Imperial Wizard of Iraq

Before we get to the good news, check out this weird Times headline:

Violence Fails to Spoil a Party Atmosphere on Baghdad's Streets

What's the point of mentioning...?  Oh never mind.  What do we call a reverse "Damning But?"

Anyway, reporter Dexter Filkins goes on to write that the Independent Election Commission of Iraq estimates turn out at eight million people, or 57 percent.  Then he goes from the fantastic to the incredible:

The predicted low turnout in Anbar, a hotspot of Sunni resistance to the American occupation, was exceeded to such an extent that extra voting materials had to be rushed to outlying villages, where long lines were formed at polling stations, Mr. Ayar said.

Ready, set, go, bloggers.  Now we have to pile on the "boycott" meme.  We have to change the discourse:  It was no "voter boycott" the Muslim Scholars Asscociation was attempting, but "voter suppression."  Harith al-Dhari's group does not represent the Sunni people any more than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi does. These people are shams, phonies, liars, murderes.  And they lost.

To put their activities in another perspective:  The Muslim Scholars Association and Zarqawi's "Al Qaeda in Iraq" franchise attempted to do to the Sunni Arabs what Jim Crow laws and the KKK inflicted for decades on African-Americans in the South:  rob them of their freedom, dignity and inalienable human rights.  We can't say it enough:  this war is about civil rights in Iraq.  

Hmmm, where's all that talk about the "Resistance" now?

UPDATE:  Be prepared.  Final voter turn-out percentages may be dropping.  Could we go below 50 percent?  Still a victory for democracy, of course, but also possibilities for face-saving spin for the terrorists, the Sunni clerical establishment and Juan Cole.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(Note:  You can also read this at Chester who has been kind enough to post my contributions along with his extensive coverage of the elections, and just about everything else)

It might be the wrong finger, but Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar's message to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is clear.

Nasir Hasan once told me that on April 9, 2003--the day Saddam's statue fell in Baghdad's Firdusi Square--he learned that "history can actually smile."

Well, my friends, history has just smiled again. 

I write this just after the polls have closed in Iraq.  Over 70% turnout, we hear.  Minimal violence.  Election results, of course, are not yet known--except this:  the big winners were the Iraqi people.  And democracy.

Let us pause to consider:  In a week when we commemorated the liberation 60 years ago of the Nazi death-camp at Auschwitz--on the day that, 72 years ago, Weimar president Paul Hindenburg appointed Adolph Hitler Chancellor of Germany--the forces of democracy and freedom have won their greatest victory since the fall of the Berlin Wall.   There are few words to describe the magnitude and magnificence of this moment.  Just as there are no adequate words to describe the sacrifices of the Iraqi people and American soldiers that brought the world this moment.

Look at these pictures from Iraq. (scroll down).  No doubt we'll be seeing many more shots like this. Average people. Two years ago few of us (including myself) gave much thought about them; they were unknown, unseen, blotted out by the abysmal shadow of Saddam Hussein.  Yet today, they were the focus of the entire world.  Today, the course of history pivoted on their fingertips--fingertips stained not with the blood of tyranny, but the ink of democracy.

And their enemies, what of them?  What of those who indulged in grandiose fantasies of "blood baths" and "massacres" rather than engage in the quiet, humble process of elections?  They--thank God--could not make good their threats in full.  Oh, we can guess their next tact will be to claim the elections were "illegitimate"  (unlike, of course, their nihlistic "insurgency").  But, as Osama bin Laden once said, history rides with the "strong horse."  In the competition between Al Qaeda and democracy, Al Qaeda lost.  Big time.  Who's the strong horse now?

What to look for in the next few days:  Sunni voting results from areas not under threat of terrorism.  If we can determine that Sunnis would have voted if not in fear of their lives, then we can gauge the measure of their committment to democracy.  If, as I suspect, it is high, then we must immediately replace the concept of a "Sunni boycott"  with "Sunni vote suppression."  Boycotts are voluntary acts of non-participation; suppression is when you use force to prevent someone from acting.  And if terrorists and their clerical allies suppressed voting, then doesn't that "de-legitimize" their claim to represent Sunni Arabs?  In this case, contending that Sunnis didn't vote because they supported Zarqawi and the Muslim Scholars Association would be like saying blacks didn't vote in the post-bellum South because they agreed with Jim Crow and the KKK.

And what of our friends on the Left?  I'm sorry they can't share in our joy--because there is no reason they should not.  Alas, like the Muslim Scholars Association, they, too, decided to "boycott" the elections.  For example, here is what the great lefty website Daily Kos had to say yesterday:

The war is long past lost. Time to pack it in, and save the lives of our men and women in uniform that will otherwise face a barrage of bullets and RPG rounds during their extended stay in the desert.

Clearly, Dean-shill Marko Zuniga has an odd perception of liberalism.  On a day when millions of Iraqi citizens stood up against the specter of fascism to exercise their rights as free and dignified human beings, Zuniga claims the election is "simply an exercise in pretty pictures."  Tell that to the Iraqis who danced and cried for joy at the chance to vote, Mr. Zuniga.  Tell that to people who have suffered for decades under a tyrant whose crimes were brutal to the point of madness.  Tell that to the men and women who died to make this day a reality.

But Zuniga can't top the outrage posted on TalkLeft.  First, the site runs this excerpt from Chris Allbrittion's blog from Iraq :

So far, not as much violence as everybody feared. The question is why? Is the insurgency taking a pass on this one? (It's possible. Our sources in the insurgency say the election will make no difference to them, so why expend a lot of energy?) Is the insurgency much weaker than previously thought? Or is the level of security sufficient to keep it in check? If that's the case, then that is discouraging, too, because the measures that have kept today safe (so far) are truly draconian. No driving, dusk to dawn curfews, states of emergency. If that's what it takes to provide security in Iraq, why erase one police state only to replace it with another?

Beneath this tactless, heartless passage, they post a photo of a U.S. soldier in sunglasses.  Message received:  the U.S. has formed a police state similar to Saddam's regime.  Tell that to the Marines, folks.

But let's let that pass.  Today is not for us, it is for the Iraqis.  No doubt there will be further victories to enjoy and disappointments to mull over in the days to come.  For now, let's contemplate the meaning of democracy and the spread of freedom in a hitherto dark land.  And let us celebrate, for today history did more than smile.  It cheered.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(Note:  You can also read this at Chester who has been kind enough to post my contributions along with his extensive coverage of the elections, and just about everything else)

It might be the wrong finger, but Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar's message to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is clear.

Nasir Hasan once told me that on April 9, 2003--the day Saddam's statue fell in Baghdad's Firdusi Square--he learned that "history can actually smile."

Well, my friends, history has just smiled again. 

I write this just after the polls have closed in Iraq.  Over 70% turnout, we hear.  Minimal violence.  Election results, of course, are not yet known--except this:  the big winners were the Iraqi people.  And democracy.

Let us pause to consider:  In a week when we commemorated the liberation 60 years ago of the Nazi death-camp at Auschwitz--on the day that, 72 years ago, Weimar president Paul Hindenburg appointed Adolph Hitler Chancellor of Germany--the forces of democracy and freedom have won their greatest victory since the fall of the Berlin Wall.   There are few words to describe the magnitude and magnificence of this moment.  Just as there are no adequate words to describe the sacrifices of the Iraqi people and American soldiers that brought the world this moment.

Look at these pictures from Iraq. (scroll down).  No doubt we'll be seeing many more shots like this. Average people. Two years ago few of us (including myself) gave much thought about them; they were unknown, unseen, blotted out by the abysmal shadow of Saddam Hussein.  Yet today, they were the focus of the entire world.  Today, the course of history pivoted on their fingertips--fingertips stained not with the blood of tyranny, but the ink of democracy.

And their enemies, what of them?  What of those who indulged in grandiose fantasies of "blood baths" and "massacres" rather than engage in the quiet, humble process of elections?  They--thank God--could not make good their threats in full.  Oh, we can guess their next tact will be to claim the elections were "illegitimate"  (unlike, of course, their nihlistic "insurgency").  But, as Osama bin Laden once said, history rides with the "strong horse."  In the competition between Al Qaeda and democracy, Al Qaeda lost.  Big time.  Who's the strong horse now?

What to look for in the next few days:  Sunni voting results from areas not under threat of terrorism.  If we can determine that Sunnis would have voted if not in fear of their lives, then we can gauge the measure of their committment to democracy.  If, as I suspect, it is high, then we must immediately replace the concept of a "Sunni boycott"  with "Sunni vote suppression."  Boycotts are voluntary acts of non-participation; suppression is when you use force to prevent someone from acting.  And if terrorists and their clerical allies suppressed voting, then doesn't that "de-legitimize" their claim to represent Sunni Arabs?  In this case, contending that Sunnis didn't vote because they supported Zarqawi and the Muslim Scholars Association would be like saying blacks didn't vote in the post-bellum South because they agreed with Jim Crow and the KKK.

And what of our friends on the Left?  I'm sorry they can't share in our joy--because there is no reason they should not.  Alas, like the Muslim Scholars Association, they, too, decided to "boycott" the elections.  For example, here is what the great lefty website Daily Kos had to say yesterday:

The war is long past lost. Time to pack it in, and save the lives of our men and women in uniform that will otherwise face a barrage of bullets and RPG rounds during their extended stay in the desert.

Clearly, Dean-shill Marko Zuniga has an odd perception of liberalism.  On a day when millions of Iraqi citizens stood up against the specter of fascism to exercise their rights as free and dignified human beings, Zuniga claims the election is "simply an exercise in pretty pictures."  Tell that to the Iraqis who danced and cried for joy at the chance to vote, Mr. Zuniga.  Tell that to people who have suffered for decades under a tyrant whose crimes were brutal to the point of madness.  Tell that to the men and women who died to make this day a reality.

But Zuniga can't top the outrage posted on TalkLeft.  First, the site runs this excerpt from Chris Allbrittion's blog from Iraq :

So far, not as much violence as everybody feared. The question is why? Is the insurgency taking a pass on this one? (It's possible. Our sources in the insurgency say the election will make no difference to them, so why expend a lot of energy?) Is the insurgency much weaker than previously thought? Or is the level of security sufficient to keep it in check? If that's the case, then that is discouraging, too, because the measures that have kept today safe (so far) are truly draconian. No driving, dusk to dawn curfews, states of emergency. If that's what it takes to provide security in Iraq, why erase one police state only to replace it with another?

Beneath this tactless, heartless passage, they post a photo of a U.S. soldier in sunglasses.  Message received:  the U.S. has formed a police state similar to Saddam's regime.  Tell that to the Marines, folks.

But let's let that pass.  Today is not for us, it is for the Iraqis.  No doubt there will be further victories to enjoy and disappointments to mull over in the days to come.  For now, let's contemplate the meaning of democracy and the spread of freedom in a hitherto dark land.  And let us celebrate, for today history did more than smile.  It cheered.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

10:20 a.m. -- The polls are closed now.  Nour tells me the competition in Basra is tight between the Shia's 169 ticket and Allawi's slate.  If true, this is surprising.  Although, as Nour says, many Iraqis are fearful that the Shia are too close to Iran.  The religious parties have also earned much opprobrium from Basrans for apparently financing some of their operations with fuel smuggling and drug dealing--particularly hashish.  This was going on last Spring when I there, so I'm not surprised it has continued. 

9:00 a.m. -- al-Sistani's representative Ali al-Hakim, chief of the Al-Abulla mosque in  Basra, told Nour that al-Sistani will not vote in the elections.  Seems the Grand Ayatollah never renounced his Iranian citizenship.  In other words, the man who did so much to guide Iraq to this place cannot participate in the elections he helped create.

7:50 a.m.  -- Here's some information from Nour in  Basra.  She's working with a U.K. Guardian reporter who apparently has some contacts in the street.   She tells me:

*  Voting is heavy in Basra.  At some sites, people are shouting out "169"--the United Iraqi Alliance ticket -- and the monitors and election coordinators do the actual voting.

* Christians are apparently voting for Allawi, afraid of the domination of the religion parties.

* The Buraha region in the center of the city is voting fairly heavily for the Communist Party

*  In the Sunni-T, turn out low, as expected.  According to Nour's info, 9,000 people out of Falluja's 400,000 or so voted.  She tells me one (!) man in Tikrit voted.

* She heard of 10 explosions in Baghdad.  In the town of Al-Hartha, north of Basra, anti-Iraqi fascists drove a pick-up truck disguised as a police vehicle into the polling station.  No word on casualities, but the site was closed.

More to come. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

10:20 a.m. -- The polls are closed now.  Nour tells me the competition in Basra is tight between the Shia's 169 ticket and Allawi's slate.  If true, this is surprising.  Although, as Nour says, many Iraqis are fearful that the Shia are too close to Iran.  The religious parties have also earned much opprobrium from Basrans for apparently financing some of their operations with fuel smuggling and drug dealing--particularly hashish.  This was going on last Spring when I there, so I'm not surprised it has continued. 

9:00 a.m. -- al-Sistani's representative Ali al-Hakim, chief of the Al-Abulla mosque in  Basra, told Nour that al-Sistani will not vote in the elections.  Seems the Grand Ayatollah never renounced his Iranian citizenship.  In other words, the man who did so much to guide Iraq to this place cannot participate in the elections he helped create.

7:50 a.m.  -- Here's some information from Nour in  Basra.  She's working with a U.K. Guardian reporter who apparently has some contacts in the street.   She tells me:

*  Voting is heavy in Basra.  At some sites, people are shouting out "169"--the United Iraqi Alliance ticket -- and the monitors and election coordinators do the actual voting.

* Christians are apparently voting for Allawi, afraid of the domination of the religion parties.

* The Buraha region in the center of the city is voting fairly heavily for the Communist Party

*  In the Sunni-T, turn out low, as expected.  According to Nour's info, 9,000 people out of Falluja's 400,000 or so voted.  She tells me one (!) man in Tikrit voted.

* She heard of 10 explosions in Baghdad.  In the town of Al-Hartha, north of Basra, anti-Iraqi fascists drove a pick-up truck disguised as a police vehicle into the polling station.  No word on casualities, but the site was closed.

More to come. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I't's 6:30 a.m. EDT, I've spent the last hour trolling the 'net looking for Iraqi election information.  It seems we're in a lull, not suprising since one of the glories of democracy is that it's actual process is rather dull (even, apparently, with the threat of car bombs and assassination), as opposed to mind-numbing cathedrals of light and gargantuan eagles and other Speerian flourishes. 

I do have some initial thoughts, which I'll organize into a better post soon. 

We should expect a low Sunni turn-out.  Why?  Well, we know, right?  The so-called "Sunni boycott."  But, no--that is wrong!  The majority of Sunnis want to vote--what the Sunni "leadership" has done is no boycott, but old-fashioned vote suppression. They didn't boycott the vote, they suppressed it with gunmen and homicidal martyrs.  Saying, "The Sunnis refused to vote because their leaders organized a boycott" would be similar to arguing that blacks in the South after the Civil War refused to vote because they agreed with lynchings and Jim Crow laws.  I am kicking myself for not realizing this rhetoric trap earlier.  Score one for the anti-Iraqi forces.

Oh yes, can we now call the fascist paramilitaries "anti-Iraq?"  (Credit:  Chrenkoff)  They garnered enormous legitimacy posing as fighters against "foreign occupation"--now it is clear--even to the left, or should be, at least--who they truly oppose:  average Iraqis.

Speaking of average Iraqis and democracy--check out the photographs of people going to vote.  (I don't have time for links at the moment.)  This is the true beauty of democracy--you, me, millions and millions of people around the world care so much that everyday Iraqis are voting.  They are the heroes of the day!  And to think, less than two years ago, they were unknown, unseen, unheard, blotted out by the abysmal shadow of Saddam Hussein.  That is Democracy:  power--and visibility--and identity--to the people!

More later.  I'm contacting Nour in a few minutes to get the situation in Basra.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I't's 6:30 a.m. EDT, I've spent the last hour trolling the 'net looking for Iraqi election information.  It seems we're in a lull, not suprising since one of the glories of democracy is that it's actual process is rather dull (even, apparently, with the threat of car bombs and assassination), as opposed to mind-numbing cathedrals of light and gargantuan eagles and other Speerian flourishes. 

I do have some initial thoughts, which I'll organize into a better post soon. 

We should expect a low Sunni turn-out.  Why?  Well, we know, right?  The so-called "Sunni boycott."  But, no--that is wrong!  The majority of Sunnis want to vote--what the Sunni "leadership" has done is no boycott, but old-fashioned vote suppression. They didn't boycott the vote, they suppressed it with gunmen and homicidal martyrs.  Saying, "The Sunnis refused to vote because their leaders organized a boycott" would be similar to arguing that blacks in the South after the Civil War refused to vote because they agreed with lynchings and Jim Crow laws.  I am kicking myself for not realizing this rhetoric trap earlier.  Score one for the anti-Iraqi forces.

Oh yes, can we now call the fascist paramilitaries "anti-Iraq?"  (Credit:  Chrenkoff)  They garnered enormous legitimacy posing as fighters against "foreign occupation"--now it is clear--even to the left, or should be, at least--who they truly oppose:  average Iraqis.

Speaking of average Iraqis and democracy--check out the photographs of people going to vote.  (I don't have time for links at the moment.)  This is the true beauty of democracy--you, me, millions and millions of people around the world care so much that everyday Iraqis are voting.  They are the heroes of the day!  And to think, less than two years ago, they were unknown, unseen, unheard, blotted out by the abysmal shadow of Saddam Hussein.  That is Democracy:  power--and visibility--and identity--to the people!

More later.  I'm contacting Nour in a few minutes to get the situation in Basra.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There will be no turbans in the government.

--  Adnan Ali, senior leader of the Shia Dawa Party

(Dexter Filkins, New York Times)

It's a question of luck.   A small group of [terrorists] can't target all the voting stations.  I'm going because [Ayatollah] Al-Sistani said that whoever doesn't vote is going to hell.  If the station I'm voting at is attacked then, God willing, I'll die a martyr.

--  Baghdad resident Haider Al-Maliki

(Nermeen Al-Mufti, Al-Ahram Weekly)

[T]he Iraqis do not feel that these elections will lead to the fulfillment of their main demand, which is the end of the U.S. occupation.  They simply do not see a light at the end of the dark tunnel.

-- Harith Al-Dhari, head of the Muslim Scholars Associations, a Sunni group opposed to holding the elections on January 30. 

Unfortunately, Mohammad Al-Anwar, who interviewed Al-Dhari for the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Weekly failed to ask the obvious follow-up questions:  If the Sunnis' main demand is the departure of U.S. troops, why do so many support the "insurgency?"  Why not simply help form a democratic government and ask American forces to leave?  The Sunni leadership, such as it is, has no answer to these questions--for their true goal in their fascist counter-insurgency is to reclaim lost honor and the perquisites of power by re-instating a dictatorial Baath regime.  But that hardly makes good copy, especially when compared to Shia like Al-Maliki, does it?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There will be no turbans in the government.

--  Adnan Ali, senior leader of the Shia Dawa Party

(Dexter Filkins, New York Times)

It's a question of luck.   A small group of [terrorists] can't target all the voting stations.  I'm going because [Ayatollah] Al-Sistani said that whoever doesn't vote is going to hell.  If the station I'm voting at is attacked then, God willing, I'll die a martyr.

--  Baghdad resident Haider Al-Maliki

(Nermeen Al-Mufti, Al-Ahram Weekly)

[T]he Iraqis do not feel that these elections will lead to the fulfillment of their main demand, which is the end of the U.S. occupation.  They simply do not see a light at the end of the dark tunnel.

-- Harith Al-Dhari, head of the Muslim Scholars Associations, a Sunni group opposed to holding the elections on January 30. 

Unfortunately, Mohammad Al-Anwar, who interviewed Al-Dhari for the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Weekly failed to ask the obvious follow-up questions:  If the Sunnis' main demand is the departure of U.S. troops, why do so many support the "insurgency?"  Why not simply help form a democratic government and ask American forces to leave?  The Sunni leadership, such as it is, has no answer to these questions--for their true goal in their fascist counter-insurgency is to reclaim lost honor and the perquisites of power by re-instating a dictatorial Baath regime.  But that hardly makes good copy, especially when compared to Shia like Al-Maliki, does it?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Maybe you saw it on television, but it bears repeating nonetheless.  ABC's poll of 1,300 Iraqis in over 20 cities and towns revealed some surprisingly good news.  You can read a report on the survey here, but one passage in particular bears quoting:

Perhaps the most remarkable finding is a positive one:  Iraqis are hopeful and optimistic despite the profound difficulties they face in their daily lives.  The surveys and the anecdotal interviews are filled with example of people who told us "We feel less safe," "We have less money," "We have less electricity," etc.--and then closed by saying, "We believe our lives are getting better."

Optimists and pessimists alike seem to hold out hope for the elections.  Nationwide, more than three-quarters of our respondents said (a) they plan to vote and (b) they believe in democracy.  Jan. 30 is seen as a watershed--even by those who say they intend to boycott the vote.  One is certainly left with the impression that people will be less likely to tolerate problems after the election.

And that's what democracy is all about, right?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Maybe you saw it on television, but it bears repeating nonetheless.  ABC's poll of 1,300 Iraqis in over 20 cities and towns revealed some surprisingly good news.  You can read a report on the survey here, but one passage in particular bears quoting:

Perhaps the most remarkable finding is a positive one:  Iraqis are hopeful and optimistic despite the profound difficulties they face in their daily lives.  The surveys and the anecdotal interviews are filled with example of people who told us "We feel less safe," "We have less money," "We have less electricity," etc.--and then closed by saying, "We believe our lives are getting better."

Optimists and pessimists alike seem to hold out hope for the elections.  Nationwide, more than three-quarters of our respondents said (a) they plan to vote and (b) they believe in democracy.  Jan. 30 is seen as a watershed--even by those who say they intend to boycott the vote.  One is certainly left with the impression that people will be less likely to tolerate problems after the election.

And that's what democracy is all about, right?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 03:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My piece about the war in Iraq and the struggle for civil rights is up on NRO today.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My piece about the war in Iraq and the struggle for civil rights is up on NRO today.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I.  If this were anywhere but Iraq...

The fascists are making good on their word to ratchet up violence as election day approaches.  On Tuesday, a homicidal martyr killed two people and wounded nine in front of the Baghdad headquarters of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.   On Monday, gunmen killed two candidates for the National Assembly--Shaker Jabar Sahlia in Baghdad and Alaa Hamid in Basra.  Also killed in Basra on Monday was Riad Radi, running for the city's provincial council.

Meanwhile, as the New York Times' Dexter Filkins reports from Baghdad:

candidates are often too terrified to say their names, instead of holding rallies, they meet voters in secret, if they see them at all.

Of the 7,471 people who have filed to run, only a handful outside the relatively safe Kurdish areas have publicly identified themselves.  The locations for the 5,776 polling places have not been announced.

"I call it the secret election," Filkins quotes one Iraqi official.

On Sunday, Filkins reported on one Iraqi who dared to stand up to the fascists, Wijdan al-Khuzai.  "Ms. Khuzai, a 40-year old mother of five," he writes,  "saw in the elections on Jan. 30 a rare moment to steer her country in a more humane direction."  In the 1990s, Khuzai worked on behalf of women, helping to establish a center in Hilla where she distributed aid to "widows and mothers."   In 1996, Saddam "suggested" she become an informant for the Baath Party;  she refused.  Asked last year by the Independent Progressive Movement to run on its slate, Khuzai traveled about the country openly discussing her plans, refusing to use bodyguards.

On December 24, Americans troops found her body on the highway to the Baghdad airport.  Writes Filkins,

Ms. Khuzai had been shot five times, once in the face.  Her shoulder blades had been broken, and her hands had been cuffed behind her back so tightly that her wrists bled.

Why would a mother of five risk her life to bring democracy to Iraq?  Says her sibling, Nada Khuzai, "My sister figured that if she didn't do it, then no one would." 

...the Left would be roiling in outrage

especially if democracy were under threat in places activists really care about. 

II.  Once upon a time they fought fascists in the name of organized labor...

On January 4, a "masked gang" broke into the Baghdad home of Hadi Salih.  His crime had been to serve as a leading figure in the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), one of 12 labor organizations formed in Iraq over the last two years.  According to Johann Hari, the IFTU had already recruited some 300,000 Sunnis, Shias and Christians.  As Hari reports, the Islamofascists grabbed Salih and

bound him hand and foot and they blindfolded him.  They beat and they burned his flesh.  Once they had finished torturing him, they strangled him with an electric cord.  As a final touch, they riddled his body with bullets.

..now many fight against labor in the name of fascism...

Numerous organizations--from Occupation Watch to U.S. Labor Against the War to the AFL-CIO--denounced Salih's murder.  But do they really think this sort of assassination never took place under Saddam--and won't continue to do so if the Islamofascists succeed in destroying democracy?  Argues Hari, a leftist based in England,

The murder of Salih bears all the hallmarks of Saddam's Mukhabarat--the Baathist KGB.  Whatever you thought about the justice of the recent war in Iraq--and there were plenty of good reasons to oppose it--the only decent path now is to stand with a majority of Iraqis against the murderers of Salih and dozens of other Iraqi trade unionists.

There's a leftist sentiment we can rally around.  Unfortunately, as Hari observes, it is not universally shared among his colleagues.  He writes that well-known radical Brit journalist John Pilger

who says he has 'seldom felt as safe in any country' as when he visited Saddam's Iraq--now openly supports the resistance on the grounds that 'we can't afford to be choosey.'  The Stop the War Coalition passed a resolution recently saying the resistance should use 'any means necessary...[Scottish MP] George Galloway has attacked the IFTU as 'quislings' and described the tearful descriptions of one of their members of life under Saddam as a 'party trick.'

A few months ago, Hari continues, Subdhi al-Mashadani, an IFTU representative, spoke at London's European Social Forum, a collection of internationally-minded activist groups.  If al-Mashadani was looking for support, he went about the wrong way:

[He] didn't restrict his comments to the need for occupation troops to leave once a democratic election has been held.  He also insisted on talking about the nature of the Sunni 'resistance'--one of the most reactionary political forces anywhere on earth...The audience at the Social Forum booed and hissed him so loudly that he had to leave the stage.

...or they simply don't seem to care at all.

I was curious about how the better-known lefty blogs were reporting the recent Islamofascist attacks on Iraqi's fledgling democracy.  After all, we can imagine the turmoil they'd been in if this battle took place in Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras, areas with attractive (preferably Native American) indigenous peoples where the U.S., and not Syria, Iran or Saddam Hussein is the bad guy. This is what I found.

January 19th, 7:10 p.m.  Daily Kos: a RAND report on "avoiding a draft;" social conservative dissatisfaction with Bush; Howard Dean; political problems for Senator Lincoln Chafee; something about "red state governors;" an attack on Condoleezza Rice; Bush's Social Security plans; Bush's Social Security plans (again); Senator Boxer's opposition to Gonzales; something about Martin Frost.

7:15 p.m.  Talking Points Memo:  Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas; Bush's Social Security plans; Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); John Kerry's opposition to Rice; Martin Frost; Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); Patty Murray; a table of Social Security beneficiaries; Bush's Social Security plans (again); Martin Frost (again); Bush's personal finances; Cheney and Social Security; disability benefits; social security (again) (again) (again).

7:25 p.m. Eschaton (Atrios):  social security; Lou Dobbs; Lawrence Summers' comments on women; Bill O'Reilly; social security (again); an attack on Hugh Hewiit; social security (again); social security (again); Bill Thomas; social security (again); social security (again); Condi; Martin Frost; a story about a G.I. accused of torturing Iraqis (finally!); parent notification laws; Bill O'Reilly (again)

To be fair, there are left-wing blogs that do cover the conflict--such as Juan Cole's often useful but relentlessly anti-war Informed Comment.  And indeed, this blog does not cover important issues like social security and Alberto Gonzales or the latest Howard Dean up-date.  But then again, I don't purport to cover a wide range of issues, just Iraq and the War against Islamofascism. 

7:30 p.m.  Wonkette:  don't anyone miss the exciting post about Social Security!

III.  Meanwhile, abandoned by much of the world, Iraqi democracy struggles on...

The headline of Christine Hauser's front-page Times article last Saturday says it all:

Under Fire, Election Workers In Iraq Are Scared but Resolute

She goes on to write about thousands of Iraqi election workers who have formed a veritable "clandestine political movement" involved in

organizing voting boxes for polling centers, drawing up leaflets about how to vote, distributing posters promoting the elections, working on designs for ballots and sending out resignation forms...

all under great risk to their lives.

Threatened, attacked, kidnapped and killed, Iraqi's election workers are finding that being at the forefront of the electoral process means surviving the frontlines of an insurgency determined to stop it.

Listen to these men and women--quoted by Hauser--who are hazarding all to fight fascism.

There are a lot of people who also would fight for what I do.  I believe in democracy.

There will always be that possibility of a car bomb or gunmen, but we have got to vote anyway.  This is what our religious leaders say we must do, because it will empower us.

All I need is for at least one person to know what I believe in, in case I lose my life.

January 20, 5:35 a.m., Lean Left:  the cost of the Bush inauguration; Social Security; re-districting; children's science fiction; lefty blog contest; the Armstrong Williams controversy; something about liberal politics and judges; Bush's troubles with the religious right.

...especially the Iraqi Communists.

It should come as no surprise that the first public democracy rally was held December 17 by 2,000 Communist Party members at the Baghdad sports stadium.  Not only that, but they have continued to campaign in a remarkably open fashion.  As Filkins reported on January 16:

When workers for the Iraqi Communist Party drove a caravan with loudspeakers into Shoula, a neighborhood in northern Baghdad, on Friday, many of the residents looked on dumbfounded with their mouths agape.

"We will lift up the poor!" the young Communist shouted into the bullhorn.

Filkins continues,

The Communists, for instance, now espousing free elections and religious tolerance, are among the few Iraqi parties that send candidates into the streets.  Two of its members have been gunned down in the past month.

As I write in In the Red Zone, of all the democratic activists I met in Iraq, the Communists impressed me the most.  Not because of their ideology, but because their program was stridently secular, non-nationalistic and pro-democratic.  Moreover, unlike many Iraqi democrats, who seemed to believe democracy consisted of meetings and publicity and press releases, the Communists knew how to build small grassroots institutions and to mobilize followers.  Not only that, but they're saying all the right things these days.

As Samir Adil, head of Baghdad's Worker-Communist party told me, "We oppose religious and ethnic parties seeking to divide Iraq.  Our enemies are not Shia, Sunnis or Kurds, but Islamic terrorists."  Another WCP member is Yanar Mohammad, a firebrand leftist who, at least when I saw her last, was speaking openly about the need for Iraqis, and the world, to fight "political Islam." 

Interestingly, in a recent interview WCP spokesman Khasro Saya expressed deep disappointment with the Western left: 

Assigning the struggle against political Islam to the communists in the East alone and not participating in this struggle, apart from being an absolutely wrong understanding of communism and the communist struggle, removes the Western anti-imperialist Left from the front of the internationalist struggle and puts it in the front of bourgeois reaction beside the criminal policies of Islam.  (my emphasis)

Unfortunately, the WCP maintains the Marxist-Lenin preoccupation with world domination:  "The objective the WCP struggles for will only come true through a socialist revolution of the working class." 

By contrast, the older Iraqi Communist Party seems dedicated to a more moderate vision of social change in Iraq.   In Basra, I spoke to ICP head Ali Mehdi, who told me, "We want to establish labor unions, an independent judiciary, and participate in democratic elections, where we can put forth reasonable demands--we have no interest in a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' or setting ourselves up as an alternative to the government or the police."  As for capitalism, Mehdi struck a surprising note of accommodation.  "Our country is in need of private enterprise and the skills and capabilities it can bring to Iraq."

No wonder an NGO official in Basra told me, "If I were the Americans and wanted to spread democracy through Iraq, I'd pour money into its Communist parties."

Don't get me wrong:  personally, I find the red flag as abhorrent as the black or green.  But the idea is intriguing:  if the U.S. used radical Islam to hep defeat communism, why not use communism to help defeat radical Islam?

IV.  Meanwhile, the carnage continues.

January 19, 2004:  four big explosions erupt in Baghdad as fascist thugs continue their attempts to strangle Iraq's nascent democracy.  Twenty-six people were killed and 50 wounded.

But never mind that--did you read Matthew Yglesias' fascinating take on Social Security?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 05:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I.  If this were anywhere but Iraq...

The fascists are making good on their word to ratchet up violence as election day approaches.  On Tuesday, a homicidal martyr killed two people and wounded nine in front of the Baghdad headquarters of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.   On Monday, gunmen killed two candidates for the National Assembly--Shaker Jabar Sahlia in Baghdad and Alaa Hamid in Basra.  Also killed in Basra on Monday was Riad Radi, running for the city's provincial council.

Meanwhile, as the New York Times' Dexter Filkins reports from Baghdad:

candidates are often too terrified to say their names, instead of holding rallies, they meet voters in secret, if they see them at all.

Of the 7,471 people who have filed to run, only a handful outside the relatively safe Kurdish areas have publicly identified themselves.  The locations for the 5,776 polling places have not been announced.

"I call it the secret election," Filkins quotes one Iraqi official.

On Sunday, Filkins reported on one Iraqi who dared to stand up to the fascists, Wijdan al-Khuzai.  "Ms. Khuzai, a 40-year old mother of five," he writes,  "saw in the elections on Jan. 30 a rare moment to steer her country in a more humane direction."  In the 1990s, Khuzai worked on behalf of women, helping to establish a center in Hilla where she distributed aid to "widows and mothers."   In 1996, Saddam "suggested" she become an informant for the Baath Party;  she refused.  Asked last year by the Independent Progressive Movement to run on its slate, Khuzai traveled about the country openly discussing her plans, refusing to use bodyguards.

On December 24, Americans troops found her body on the highway to the Baghdad airport.  Writes Filkins,

Ms. Khuzai had been shot five times, once in the face.  Her shoulder blades had been broken, and her hands had been cuffed behind her back so tightly that her wrists bled.

Why would a mother of five risk her life to bring democracy to Iraq?  Says her sibling, Nada Khuzai, "My sister figured that if she didn't do it, then no one would." 

...the Left would be roiling in outrage

especially if democracy were under threat in places activists really care about. 

II.  Once upon a time they fought fascists in the name of organized labor...

On January 4, a "masked gang" broke into the Baghdad home of Hadi Salih.  His crime had been to serve as a leading figure in the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), one of 12 labor organizations formed in Iraq over the last two years.  According to Johann Hari, the IFTU had already recruited some 300,000 Sunnis, Shias and Christians.  As Hari reports, the Islamofascists grabbed Salih and

bound him hand and foot and they blindfolded him.  They beat and they burned his flesh.  Once they had finished torturing him, they strangled him with an electric cord.  As a final touch, they riddled his body with bullets.

..now many fight against labor in the name of fascism...

Numerous organizations--from Occupation Watch to U.S. Labor Against the War to the AFL-CIO--denounced Salih's murder.  But do they really think this sort of assassination never took place under Saddam--and won't continue to do so if the Islamofascists succeed in destroying democracy?  Argues Hari, a leftist based in England,

The murder of Salih bears all the hallmarks of Saddam's Mukhabarat--the Baathist KGB.  Whatever you thought about the justice of the recent war in Iraq--and there were plenty of good reasons to oppose it--the only decent path now is to stand with a majority of Iraqis against the murderers of Salih and dozens of other Iraqi trade unionists.

There's a leftist sentiment we can rally around.  Unfortunately, as Hari observes, it is not universally shared among his colleagues.  He writes that well-known radical Brit journalist John Pilger

who says he has 'seldom felt as safe in any country' as when he visited Saddam's Iraq--now openly supports the resistance on the grounds that 'we can't afford to be choosey.'  The Stop the War Coalition passed a resolution recently saying the resistance should use 'any means necessary...[Scottish MP] George Galloway has attacked the IFTU as 'quislings' and described the tearful descriptions of one of their members of life under Saddam as a 'party trick.'

A few months ago, Hari continues, Subdhi al-Mashadani, an IFTU representative, spoke at London's European Social Forum, a collection of internationally-minded activist groups.  If al-Mashadani was looking for support, he went about the wrong way:

[He] didn't restrict his comments to the need for occupation troops to leave once a democratic election has been held.  He also insisted on talking about the nature of the Sunni 'resistance'--one of the most reactionary political forces anywhere on earth...The audience at the Social Forum booed and hissed him so loudly that he had to leave the stage.

...or they simply don't seem to care at all.

I was curious about how the better-known lefty blogs were reporting the recent Islamofascist attacks on Iraqi's fledgling democracy.  After all, we can imagine the turmoil they'd been in if this battle took place in Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras, areas with attractive (preferably Native American) indigenous peoples where the U.S., and not Syria, Iran or Saddam Hussein is the bad guy. This is what I found.

January 19th, 7:10 p.m.  Daily Kos: a RAND report on "avoiding a draft;" social conservative dissatisfaction with Bush; Howard Dean; political problems for Senator Lincoln Chafee; something about "red state governors;" an attack on Condoleezza Rice; Bush's Social Security plans; Bush's Social Security plans (again); Senator Boxer's opposition to Gonzales; something about Martin Frost.

7:15 p.m.  Talking Points Memo:  Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas; Bush's Social Security plans; Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); John Kerry's opposition to Rice; Martin Frost; Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (again); Patty Murray; a table of Social Security beneficiaries; Bush's Social Security plans (again); Martin Frost (again); Bush's personal finances; Cheney and Social Security; disability benefits; social security (again) (again) (again).

7:25 p.m. Eschaton (Atrios):  social security; Lou Dobbs; Lawrence Summers' comments on women; Bill O'Reilly; social security (again); an attack on Hugh Hewiit; social security (again); social security (again); Bill Thomas; social security (again); social security (again); Condi; Martin Frost; a story about a G.I. accused of torturing Iraqis (finally!); parent notification laws; Bill O'Reilly (again)

To be fair, there are left-wing blogs that do cover the conflict--such as Juan Cole's often useful but relentlessly anti-war Informed Comment.  And indeed, this blog does not cover important issues like social security and Alberto Gonzales or the latest Howard Dean up-date.  But then again, I don't purport to cover a wide range of issues, just Iraq and the War against Islamofascism. 

7:30 p.m.  Wonkette:  don't anyone miss the exciting post about Social Security!

III.  Meanwhile, abandoned by much of the world, Iraqi democracy struggles on...

The headline of Christine Hauser's front-page Times article last Saturday says it all:

Under Fire, Election Workers In Iraq Are Scared but Resolute

She goes on to write about thousands of Iraqi election workers who have formed a veritable "clandestine political movement" involved in

organizing voting boxes for polling centers, drawing up leaflets about how to vote, distributing posters promoting the elections, working on designs for ballots and sending out resignation forms...

all under great risk to their lives.

Threatened, attacked, kidnapped and killed, Iraqi's election workers are finding that being at the forefront of the electoral process means surviving the frontlines of an insurgency determined to stop it.

Listen to these men and women--quoted by Hauser--who are hazarding all to fight fascism.

There are a lot of people who also would fight for what I do.  I believe in democracy.

There will always be that possibility of a car bomb or gunmen, but we have got to vote anyway.  This is what our religious leaders say we must do, because it will empower us.

All I need is for at least one person to know what I believe in, in case I lose my life.

January 20, 5:35 a.m., Lean Left:  the cost of the Bush inauguration; Social Security; re-districting; children's science fiction; lefty blog contest; the Armstrong Williams controversy; something about liberal politics and judges; Bush's troubles with the religious right.

...especially the Iraqi Communists.

It should come as no surprise that the first public democracy rally was held December 17 by 2,000 Communist Party members at the Baghdad sports stadium.  Not only that, but they have continued to campaign in a remarkably open fashion.  As Filkins reported on January 16:

When workers for the Iraqi Communist Party drove a caravan with loudspeakers into Shoula, a neighborhood in northern Baghdad, on Friday, many of the residents looked on dumbfounded with their mouths agape.

"We will lift up the poor!" the young Communist shouted into the bullhorn.

Filkins continues,

The Communists, for instance, now espousing free elections and religious tolerance, are among the few Iraqi parties that send candidates into the streets.  Two of its members have been gunned down in the past month.

As I write in In the Red Zone, of all the democratic activists I met in Iraq, the Communists impressed me the most.  Not because of their ideology, but because their program was stridently secular, non-nationalistic and pro-democratic.  Moreover, unlike many Iraqi democrats, who seemed to believe democracy consisted of meetings and publicity and press releases, the Communists knew how to build small grassroots institutions and to mobilize followers.  Not only that, but they're saying all the right things these days.

As Samir Adil, head of Baghdad's Worker-Communist party told me, "We oppose religious and ethnic parties seeking to divide Iraq.  Our enemies are not Shia, Sunnis or Kurds, but Islamic terrorists."  Another WCP member is Yanar Mohammad, a firebrand leftist who, at least when I saw her last, was speaking openly about the need for Iraqis, and the world, to fight "political Islam." 

Interestingly, in a recent interview WCP spokesman Khasro Saya expressed deep disappointment with the Western left: 

Assigning the struggle against political Islam to the communists in the East alone and not participating in this struggle, apart from being an absolutely wrong understanding of communism and the communist struggle, removes the Western anti-imperialist Left from the front of the internationalist struggle and puts it in the front of bourgeois reaction beside the criminal policies of Islam.  (my emphasis)

Unfortunately, the WCP maintains the Marxist-Lenin preoccupation with world domination:  "The objective the WCP struggles for will only come true through a socialist revolution of the working class." 

By contrast, the older Iraqi Communist Party seems dedicated to a more moderate vision of social change in Iraq.   In Basra, I spoke to ICP head Ali Mehdi, who told me, "We want to establish labor unions, an independent judiciary, and participate in democratic elections, where we can put forth reasonable demands--we have no interest in a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' or setting ourselves up as an alternative to the government or the police."  As for capitalism, Mehdi struck a surprising note of accommodation.  "Our country is in need of private enterprise and the skills and capabilities it can bring to Iraq."

No wonder an NGO official in Basra told me, "If I were the Americans and wanted to spread democracy through Iraq, I'd pour money into its Communist parties."

Don't get me wrong:  personally, I find the red flag as abhorrent as the black or green.  But the idea is intriguing:  if the U.S. used radical Islam to hep defeat communism, why not use communism to help defeat radical Islam?

IV.  Meanwhile, the carnage continues.

January 19, 2004:  four big explosions erupt in Baghdad as fascist thugs continue their attempts to strangle Iraq's nascent democracy.  Twenty-six people were killed and 50 wounded.

But never mind that--did you read Matthew Yglesias' fascinating take on Social Security?

Posted by Steven Vincent at 05:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Iraq's new constitution, to be drafted by the newly elected national assembly, will not be inspired by sectarian considerations and...the voice of all Iraqis must be heard in the debate on the constitution

-- Ayatollah Sistani spokesman Hamid Al-Khafaf, speaking in Cairo

Iraq's Sunnis must be represented in any future government regardless of the election results.

-- Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and a front-runner for Iraq's new Prime Minister

We will accept and give full support to a Shia-dominated government provided that it draws a timeline for the withdrawal of occupation troops.

-- Harith Al-Dhari, head of the Muslims Cleric's Association, the main Sunni political organization, speaking to Al-Hayat newspaper

Elections should not be the endgame but only the beginning of a long process...In the end, what we want is a government that represents the interests of all Iraqis and not those of a sect or ethnic group.  Our judgment will be based on the agenda of the government rather than its composition.

-- Iyad Al-Samarrai, spokesperson for the Iraqi Islamist Party, a Sunni group

(Omayma Abdel-Latif, Al-Ahram Weekly)

The elections aim to separate the Iraqi from his religion.  When people vote for politicians, secularists, those who co-operate with the occupation--they will not think of God.

-- Moqtada al-Sadr

(Steve Negus/Dhiya Rasan, Financial Times)

Beware of henchman who speak in the name of Islamic parties and urge people to participate in the election.

-- Osama bin Laden

Lastly, consider this comment from the New York Times about the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

[F]or the ordinary people of Iraq...it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the American gone

Actually, I'm cheating here.  That last quote is from Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg and he was not talking about Iraq, but Indochina.  Schanberg expressed the sentiment that life would improve for the people of that region once the U.S. pulled out in a front-page article dated April 13, 1975.

Four days later, Cambodia fell to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Iraq's new constitution, to be drafted by the newly elected national assembly, will not be inspired by sectarian considerations and...the voice of all Iraqis must be heard in the debate on the constitution

-- Ayatollah Sistani spokesman Hamid Al-Khafaf, speaking in Cairo

Iraq's Sunnis must be represented in any future government regardless of the election results.

-- Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and a front-runner for Iraq's new Prime Minister

We will accept and give full support to a Shia-dominated government provided that it draws a timeline for the withdrawal of occupation troops.

-- Harith Al-Dhari, head of the Muslims Cleric's Association, the main Sunni political organization, speaking to Al-Hayat newspaper

Elections should not be the endgame but only the beginning of a long process...In the end, what we want is a government that represents the interests of all Iraqis and not those of a sect or ethnic group.  Our judgment will be based on the agenda of the government rather than its composition.

-- Iyad Al-Samarrai, spokesperson for the Iraqi Islamist Party, a Sunni group

(Omayma Abdel-Latif, Al-Ahram Weekly)

The elections aim to separate the Iraqi from his religion.  When people vote for politicians, secularists, those who co-operate with the occupation--they will not think of God.

-- Moqtada al-Sadr

(Steve Negus/Dhiya Rasan, Financial Times)

Beware of henchman who speak in the name of Islamic parties and urge people to participate in the election.

-- Osama bin Laden

Lastly, consider this comment from the New York Times about the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

[F]or the ordinary people of Iraq...it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the American gone

Actually, I'm cheating here.  That last quote is from Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg and he was not talking about Iraq, but Indochina.  Schanberg expressed the sentiment that life would improve for the people of that region once the U.S. pulled out in a front-page article dated April 13, 1975.

Four days later, Cambodia fell to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Michael Luther King was born on April 15, 1929.  Nowadays, in order to provide their citizens with a three-day week-end, many municipalities and states commemorate the life of this man--who later changed his name to Martin--on the Monday nearest to his birthday.  So it is today we observe the semi-holiday of one of America's greatest figures, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and martyr to the cause of human rights.

Few of us, I wager, commemorate "President's Day" by imitating Washington's nobility or Lincoln's patient compassion--let alone Christmas by emulating the behavior of its natal figure--so it's no wonder that for many Americans, Martin Luther King Day has become little more than an extra day off work.  Either that, or time for media pundits, politicians, academics and the myrmidons of the "diversity" industry to mouth bromides about "peace" and "tolerance" and "respect" for the "Other's" own "special identity."  (The quotation marks seem necessary.)

Of the two, I think lazing in front of the flat-screen with remote in hand seems less harmful to the legacy of Dr. King. After all, it was--as many right wing observers note--the civil rights leader himself who stated in his 1963 "I Have a Dream" oration:

I have a dream that one day my four children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character.

Multiculturalism, identity politics, essentialism, resentment, segregated college campuses, the self-loathing misogynistic culture of Hip-Hop--all this, and more, is antithetical to King's vision.  Antithetical because at their base lies tribalism, the reactionary mindset that lures mankind back to the primitive cult of blood and soil and biological determinism.  All  of man's advancements--from a vision of an ethical god to the supremacy of law over patriarchal custom--have come contra tribalism.  Many, if not most, of man's defeats have occurred when the bigotry of tribalism has extinguished the light of civilization and human rights.

King knew this threat all too well, yet maintained faith that justice would always prevail. 

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.  I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

As indeed, the assassin who took his life in 1968 has not--and could never--have the final say in the legacy of this true American hero.

Who speaks, who acts, and who doesn't was vital to King's vision of human rights.  From his 1963 letter rebuking the pastors of Birmingham for their objections to his activism ("Was not Jesus an extremist in love?") to such oft-quoted statements as "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter," King enjoined his listeners to abjure cowardice, expedience and vanity to follow the call of conscience.  Fifty years ago, American liberals did just that:  riding, for example, with the Freedom Riders, or working for voting rights in the South.  Many lost their lives:  just recently, we read about how Mississippi authorities re-arrested Edgar Ray Killen for the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

Today, however, in the greatest civil rights issue to confront America since the 1960s, the Left remains silent, or even hostile.  I mean, of course, Iraq.  Before our eyes, we see people struggling to achieve self-determination and freedom beset by the same reactionary tribal forces that Killen and his night-riding terrorists represented forty years ago.  Only this time, it is largely the neo-conservative right, joined by some courageous liberals--as well as American soldiers of every political persuasion--who are answering Dr. King's call to conscience.  The left has simply checked itself out of the fight. 

Is this war any different than other struggles for human rights?  On a lonely road in Iraq last March, terrorists ambushed and murdered Americans Fern Holland, Robert Zangas and their Iraqi translator Salwa Ali.  Their crime was to attempt to establish women's centers in the central part of the country.  Their lives were spent in the identical cause that Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman--as well as Medgar Evers and so many others--gave theirs, as well:  democracy.  When paramilitary death-squads target and assassinate Iraqis who were cooperating with the government, is that not similar to an old-fashioned lynching?  When gunmen stalk the Iraqi countryside, murdering civilians in the name of "defending their homeland," can we not see a modern-day Ku Klux Klan?  When a car bomb explodes, killing innocent Iraqis--do the victims not join hands across the years with the four teenage girls killed in the Birmingham church bombings? 

As Dr. King once stated,

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. 

On a personal level, of course, it doesn't matter who speaks out for democracy and human rights in Iraq--the issue is larger than any single one of us.  And it is true that reasonable people can differ reasonably on many issues involving this war.  Still, for many of us who hold within our hearts a combination of fear and hope for the future of the Iraq, we can think of no greater tribute to Dr. King than to stand beside those tortured people--and the Coalition soldiers who seek to protect them--as they struggle toward a better future.  On this Martin Luther King Day, then, let us pray for the Iraqis and our soldiers, and so honor the legacy of the the man whom we reflect upon and honor. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Michael Luther King was born on April 15, 1929.  Nowadays, in order to provide their citizens with a three-day week-end, many municipalities and states commemorate the life of this man--who later changed his name to Martin--on the Monday nearest to his birthday.  So it is today we observe the semi-holiday of one of America's greatest figures, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and martyr to the cause of human rights.

Few of us, I wager, commemorate "President's Day" by imitating Washington's nobility or Lincoln's patient compassion--let alone Christmas by emulating the behavior of its natal figure--so it's no wonder that for many Americans, Martin Luther King Day has become little more than an extra day off work.  Either that, or time for media pundits, politicians, academics and the myrmidons of the "diversity" industry to mouth bromides about "peace" and "tolerance" and "respect" for the "Other's" own "special identity."  (The quotation marks seem necessary.)

Of the two, I think lazing in front of the flat-screen with remote in hand seems less harmful to the legacy of Dr. King. After all, it was--as many right wing observers note--the civil rights leader himself who stated in his 1963 "I Have a Dream" oration:

I have a dream that one day my four children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character.

Multiculturalism, identity politics, essentialism, resentment, segregated college campuses, the self-loathing misogynistic culture of Hip-Hop--all this, and more, is antithetical to King's vision.  Antithetical because at their base lies tribalism, the reactionary mindset that lures mankind back to the primitive cult of blood and soil and biological determinism.  All  of man's advancements--from a vision of an ethical god to the supremacy of law over patriarchal custom--have come contra tribalism.  Many, if not most, of man's defeats have occurred when the bigotry of tribalism has extinguished the light of civilization and human rights.

King knew this threat all too well, yet maintained faith that justice would always prevail. 

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.  I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

As indeed, the assassin who took his life in 1968 has not--and could never--have the final say in the legacy of this true American hero.

Who speaks, who acts, and who doesn't was vital to King's vision of human rights.  From his 1963 letter rebuking the pastors of Birmingham for their objections to his activism ("Was not Jesus an extremist in love?") to such oft-quoted statements as "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter," King enjoined his listeners to abjure cowardice, expedience and vanity to follow the call of conscience.  Fifty years ago, American liberals did just that:  riding, for example, with the Freedom Riders, or working for voting rights in the South.  Many lost their lives:  just recently, we read about how Mississippi authorities re-arrested Edgar Ray Killen for the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

Today, however, in the greatest civil rights issue to confront America since the 1960s, the Left remains silent, or even hostile.  I mean, of course, Iraq.  Before our eyes, we see people struggling to achieve self-determination and freedom beset by the same reactionary tribal forces that Killen and his night-riding terrorists represented forty years ago.  Only this time, it is largely the neo-conservative right, joined by some courageous liberals--as well as American soldiers of every political persuasion--who are answering Dr. King's call to conscience.  The left has simply checked itself out of the fight. 

Is this war any different than other struggles for human rights?  On a lonely road in Iraq last March, terrorists ambushed and murdered Americans Fern Holland, Robert Zangas and their Iraqi translator Salwa Ali.  Their crime was to attempt to establish women's centers in the central part of the country.  Their lives were spent in the identical cause that Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman--as well as Medgar Evers and so many others--gave theirs, as well:  democracy.  When paramilitary death-squads target and assassinate Iraqis who were cooperating with the government, is that not similar to an old-fashioned lynching?  When gunmen stalk the Iraqi countryside, murdering civilians in the name of "defending their homeland," can we not see a modern-day Ku Klux Klan?  When a car bomb explodes, killing innocent Iraqis--do the victims not join hands across the years with the four teenage girls killed in the Birmingham church bombings? 

As Dr. King once stated,

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. 

On a personal level, of course, it doesn't matter who speaks out for democracy and human rights in Iraq--the issue is larger than any single one of us.  And it is true that reasonable people can differ reasonably on many issues involving this war.  Still, for many of us who hold within our hearts a combination of fear and hope for the future of the Iraq, we can think of no greater tribute to Dr. King than to stand beside those tortured people--and the Coalition soldiers who seek to protect them--as they struggle toward a better future.  On this Martin Luther King Day, then, let us pray for the Iraqis and our soldiers, and so honor the legacy of the the man whom we reflect upon and honor. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Michael Luther King was born on April 15, 1929.  Nowadays, in order to provide their citizens with a three-day week-end, many municipalities and states commemorate the life of this man--who later changed his name to Martin--on the Monday nearest to his birthday.  So it is today we observe the semi-holiday of one of America's greatest figures, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and martyr to the cause of human rights.

Few of us, I wager, commemorate "President's Day" by imitating Washington's nobility or Lincoln's patient compassion--let alone Christmas by emulating the behavior of its natal figure--so it's no wonder that for many Americans, Martin Luther King Day has become little more than an extra day off work.  Either that, or time for media pundits, politicians, academics and the myrmidons of the "diversity" industry to mouth bromides about "peace" and "tolerance" and "respect" for the "Other's" own "special identity."  (The quotation marks seem necessary.)

Of the two, I think lazing in front of the flat-screen with remote in hand seems less harmful to the legacy of Dr. King. After all, it was--as many right wing observers note--the civil rights leader himself who stated in his 1963 "I Have a Dream" oration:

I have a dream that one day my four children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character.

Multiculturalism, identity politics, essentialism, resentment, segregated college campuses, the self-loathing misogynistic culture of Hip-Hop--all this, and more, is antithetical to King's vision.  Antithetical because at their base lies tribalism, the reactionary mindset that lures mankind back to the primitive cult of blood and soil and biological determinism.  All  of man's advancements--from a vision of an ethical god to the supremacy of law over patriarchal custom--have come contra tribalism.  Many, if not most, of man's defeats have occurred when the bigotry of tribalism has extinguished the light of civilization and human rights.

King knew this threat all too well, yet maintained faith that justice would always prevail. 

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.  I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

As indeed, the assassin who took his life in 1968 has not--and could never--have the final say in the legacy of this true American hero.

Who speaks, who acts, and who doesn't was vital to King's vision of human rights.  From his 1963 letter rebuking the pastors of Birmingham for their objections to his activism ("Was not Jesus an extremist in love?") to such oft-quoted statements as "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter," King enjoined his listeners to abjure cowardice, expedience and vanity to follow the call of conscience.  Fifty years ago, American liberals did just that:  riding, for example, with the Freedom Riders, or working for voting rights in the South.  Many lost their lives:  just recently, we read about how Mississippi authorities re-arrested Edgar Ray Killen for the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

Today, however, in the greatest civil rights issue to confront America since the 1960s, the Left remains silent, or even hostile.  I mean, of course, Iraq.  Before our eyes, we see people struggling to achieve self-determination and freedom beset by the same reactionary tribal forces that Killen and his night-riding terrorists represented forty years ago.  Only this time, it is largely the neo-conservative right, joined by some courageous liberals--as well as American soldiers of every political persuasion--who are answering Dr. King's call to conscience.  The left has simply checked itself out of the fight. 

Is this war any different than other struggles for human rights?  On a lonely road in Iraq last March, terrorists ambushed and murdered Americans Fern Holland, Robert Zangas and their Iraqi translator Salwa Ali.  Their crime was to attempt to establish women's centers in the central part of the country.  Their lives were spent in the identical cause that Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman--as well as Medgar Evers and so many others--gave theirs, as well:  democracy.  When paramilitary death-squads target and assassinate Iraqis who were cooperating with the government, is that not similar to an old-fashioned lynching?  When gunmen stalk the Iraqi countryside, murdering civilians in the name of "defending their homeland," can we not see a modern-day Ku Klux Klan?  When a car bomb explodes, killing innocent Iraqis--do the victims not join hands across the years with the four teenage girls killed in the Birmingham church bombings? 

As Dr. King once stated,

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. 

On a personal level, of course, it doesn't matter who speaks out for democracy and human rights in Iraq--the issue is larger than any single one of us.  And it is true that reasonable people can differ reasonably on many issues involving this war.  Still, for many of us who hold within our hearts a combination of fear and hope for the future of the Iraq, we can think of no greater tribute to Dr. King than to stand beside those tortured people--and the Coalition soldiers who seek to protect them--as they struggle toward a better future.  On this Martin Luther King Day, then, let us pray for the Iraqis and our soldiers, and so honor the legacy of the the man whom we reflect upon and honor. 

Posted by Steven Vincent at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After a throat-clearing opening paragraph, yesterday's New York Times editorial--entitled "Facing Facts About Iraq's Elections"--got to the point:

It's time to talk about postponing the elections.

The Gray Lady's pronouncement--delivered with the gravity of a principle calling the parents of a disobedient child failing in school--is in keeping with the paper's disapproving attitude toward the war, which in turn reflects the prevailing opinion of northeastern liberal elites, including the CIA, State Department and other "realist" critics of neo-conservative idealism.  The editorial, in short, represents the reasonable, cautious, non-ideological side of American foreign policy--the side Europeans prefer--which, while not entirely wrong, is dangerously misguided when it comes to the January 30th elections and, more importantly, the nature of the Sunni "insurgency" that threatens them. 

After noting that violence is likely to depress turnout in Iraq's western, and predominately Sunni, provinces, the Times calls for a postponement of voting for a "fixed period of only two or three months," during which time the Allawi government "should convene an emergency meeting" to develop a "revised election timetable."  In return, Sunni leaders "would have to promise to take part in the elections that followed."  In other words, the Times and the "realist" establishment it represents, counsels the Iraqi government to answer the fascist insurgency by delaying elections, calling a meeting and holding Sunnis to their word.  We've witnessed this sort of "realistic" betrayal of democracy and reliance on paper agreements and the pledges of criminal thugs before, only it didn't take place in Baghdad--but in Munich. 

The Times is aware of the specter of appeasement. 

Worrying about whether the Sunnis will be included in the government does not mean sympathizing will their baser resentments...the Sunnis simply have to accept the fact that they will never again enjoy their old enormous share of the [Iraqi] pie.

Right.  And as soon as Hitler sees the light and realizes his bellicose policies will only pitch the continent into war, he'll come `round to being a good European...Placed in the Middle East, this same "realistic" thinking is as dangerously naive as Neville Chamberlain's 70 years ago.  Bottom line:  the Sunni radicals are not going to accept defeat and they are not going to permit elections.  If their participation in the democratic process hinged upon their acknowledgment that the days of Saddam's patronage was gone, they would have already come to the negotiating table.  This is the weakness of the Times' school of "reasonable" thinking:  it cannot conceive of an enemy who does not also act reasonably, rationally and in it's own self-interest.  The irrational power of Fascism paralyzes the realist.

As I've argued many times before, the Sunni counter-liberation is not based in a clear-eyed assessment of needs, goals or realistic objectives:  rather, driven by fear, tribalism and grandiosity, it is a plunge into the suicidal vortex of the shame-honor dynamic, increasingly fueled by religious fantasy.  And while not all Sunnis are infected with this malignant narcissism, the more radical leaders are--and these men will never negotiate, never surrender and never allow their fellow Sunnis to submit to a Shia-dominated government no matter how many postponements of elections take place.  For their own precious honor--and that of their families, clans and tribes--they would rather kill and be killed.  If they can't run Iraq--then Iraq will cease to exist.

Recently, Jawad Hashim, an Iraqi intellectual and writer who advised Saddam during the 1970s told me a chilling story.  "The dictator would often say to me, 'If there ever comes a time when my regime goes down, I will make sure that not a single stone in Iraq remains intact.'"   

The "realist" school can't grasp such frightening irrationality; rather, it must find rational reasons for Sunni intransigence.  Thus the Times notes how the U.S. made a grave error in disbanding the Iraqi army (a charge Paul Bremer deftly refuted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed which also ran on January 12, surely no coincidence) and failed to protect decent, law-abiding Sunnis from criminals and terrorists.  It also criticizes the U.N.'s "mistake" (for which the Times ultimately censures the Bush Administration) of designing elections for national candidates, rather than for local district or provincial representatives, thus allowing the Sunnis more representation in the government.  In the end, many of the Sunni grievances

could have been avoided if the American invasion had been conducted more wisely...

No doubt.  But the Times overlooks one dreadful irony of the Sunni counter-liberation:  America's successful liberation and "occupation" of Iraq has allowed it to exist and flourish.  If U.S. troops had never patrolled the streets of Ramadi, Falluja and Baghdad, never stood as a shield between the Sunni minority and a vengeful Shia and Kurdish population, what would have happened?  Peshmerga and Badr Brigade militiamen would have flooded the Sunni Triangle and done what the American army cannot bring itself to do--search out and destroy insurgent leaders, along with thousands of innocent civilians.  For all their "hatred" of the American "occupation," Sunnis know full well that without the G.I.s they castigate, denounce and murder, they themselves would fall prey to a worse enemy, enraged by decades of political and religious oppression, unconstrained by public opinion or the nightly newscasts of Al Jazeera.  The Sunnis get it both ways:  an enemy to despise, a reason to remain aggrieved and Americans to kill to reclaim their honor.

This is why the "realist" school is wrong and elections must proceed on schedule, even with the risks of civil war.  At base, the Sunni counter-liberation is not a rational struggle that politics can mitigate or end.  It has only one true goal:  to kill American soldiers and their allies.  It can only be met by force (and the Sunnis better pray to Allah that such force remains under American control).  As we see in Europe today, concession to the radical Arab tactics of insularity, non-cooperation and grievance only leads to further demands, further weakening of democracy, further danger to the world.  We must draw a line in the sand and say, you either cooperate with us on our terms, or you will be lost. 

The Times understands this, but in typical fashion, can't draw the hard conclusion. 

Many Americans--and many Iraqis--worry that if the elections were postponed, the terrorists would feel empowered by having won.  That might indeed be the case for a few months.

A few months?  And after experiencing the intoxications of bringing to naught the plans of the hated Shia and Kurds, and more importantly, the all-powerful United States, Sunni radicals are then supposed to discard their mujaheddin robes for the business suits of statesman?  Can the Times be this naive?  Not quite: 

[T]hat outcome would be far outweighed by the danger that would come from a civil war.

Perhaps.  More likely, though, postponing elections will not delay such a conflict.  Instead, it will only empower the Sunni radicals to increase their demands, raise the level of the insurgency and force a second, and a third delay, until the election process collapses.  The slim hope we have of saving Iraq from deeper misery is to present the Sunnis with an unyielding option:  either get on board the democracy train now, or be forever left at the station.  If they need an object lesson, we should direct their attention a few hundred miles to the west to see what happened to the Palestinians when they made their choice in the matter. 

As Times columnist David Brooks wrote yesterday, "The U.S. tried to hand a new Iraq back to the Iraqis.  We failed."  Yes, we did.  Badly.  But so did the Iraqis.  The unwritten story of this conflict is how each side expected the other to take up the bulk of the responsibility for reconstructing the country, and when neither did, chaos ensued.  Because of those mutual failures, the nation is embroiled in an incipient civil war.  While elections may not save Iraq, postponing them will almost certainly doom it.  The Sunnis must understand that they either come to the democratic table, or face a perpetual Palestian-like hell with only a ever-diminishing line of American troops standing between their people and the Kurdish and Shia militias, whose knives are as long as their memories. 

UPDATE:  The NRO's James Robbins weighs in on the issue.  (Credit:  Arthur Chrenkoff)

Posted by Steven Vincent at 04:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In his penetrating new book What We Owe Iraq (which I'm reviewing for American Enterprise Magazine) writer Noah Feldman observes that if the U.S. had operated in Iraq like traditional imperialists, Washington would have replaced the deposed Baath party with a military junta run by a "strong-man" general--in other words, the kind of "Saddam-lite" many Sunnis claim they want today--and turned the country into an American puppet-state.  Instead, we took a riskier--and more ethical--course by letting the Iraqis decide their government for themselves through elections, and the eventual drafting of a constitution. 

But what kind of government, what kind of constitution?  So far, most of us are focused on the elections and terrorist attempts to derail them.  Directing our attention beyond the January 30 horizon is an op-ed piece in Friday's WaPo by Brett H. McGurk, former Associate General Counsel to the CPA and someone who helped fashion Iraq's Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), which established this month's elections.  In his piece, McGurk presents a succinct and authoritative analysis of what exactly Iraqis are voting for, and how these elections are only the beginning of the laborious process of the power-sharing and compromise needed to construct a constitution.  Accompanying his op-ed is an informative online conversation with WaPo readers, which you can find here.

I'll let Mr. McGurk--who has taught Occupation Law at the University of Virginia Law School--instruct us on this subject.  But a number of his points bear highlighting. 

Any elected majority must share power to govern post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.  The country is simply too diverse and intermingled for one group to peacefully control more than a small fraction of territory.

Many observers believe that Iraq's quarrelsome ethnic and confessional groups mean democracy is impossible.  But McGurk suggests the opposite could also be true:  any attempts to govern a variegated population must involve deal-making, horse-trading, going along to get along--in short, politics, not the fiats of a megalomaniacal tyrant. 

Do the Iraqis want democracy?  McGurk sees a development the media has all but ignored.

Local governmental structures with broad powers of control have already formed in every province of Iraq.  They are an unsung success of the post-occuption period.

He relates a story told by an Iraqi friend, one of those inspiring occurances that--as I learned firsthand--you have be in the country to discover, since the press so rarely reports them.

On the day the two electoral workers were killed on Haifa Street (the picture everyone saw) other workers immediately went out to Haifa Street to continue with their work.  That, to me, is the story of Iraq--a resiliency and confidence in the long-term future that we cannot appreciate stateside.

So true.

McGurk goes on to downplay talk of civil war as "overblown."  He then expresses his views of the fascist insurgency with refreshing candor. 

IThe paramilitaries] have no coherent agenda and lack widespread support.  How do I know they lack widespread support?  Because they are murdering and torturing Iraqis--hardly the sign of a popular movement.  Look at what our Marines found in Fallujah:  torture chambers, execution cells, every mosque a fortress and ammunition depot.  This is not a resistance movement.

In my mind, however, McGurk gives short shrift to the greatest danger facing Iraq, one which threatens its future more than even the Islamofascists:  the possible splintering of the Shia-Kurd alliance over Shia insistence on shari'a (see  my post Left Behind).  As McGurk notes, the TAL

allows two-thirds of voters in three or more provinces to reject the constitution in the referendum, even if it carries a majority nationwide.  [Ayatollah] Sistani has said he rejects that provision.  But the Kurds see it as necessary insurance for their role in the permanent framework.  This will need to be worked out in the coming months.

That's a little like saying antebellum America had to "work out" the free or slave status of border states, but let's hope matters don't come to such a successionist head in Iraq.  The Sunni Triangle is too much like "Bleeding Kansas" as it is.

Balancing McGurk's generally upbeat assessment of the elections was the grumpy and overstuffed Sunday Times.  In an article headlined "U.S. is Haunted by Intital Plan for Iraqi Voting" Steven Weisman broaches a subject that's been floating around for weeks:  the fact that Iraqis must choose the members of the new assembly from nationwide lists of candidates, rather than by electing representatives from districts and provinces.  The "haunting":problem, of course, is that this all-Iraq system prevents certain provinces--say, Anbar or Nineveh--from postponing the vote until Iraqi-Coalition forces can dampen the fascist counter-liberation.  As one of the leading proponents of local elections, the Hoover Institute's Larry Diamond, put it: 

It's clear now that one of the major concerns motivating the Sunni boycott is their fear that they'll wind up severely underrepresented under this system.

Yes, and whose fault is that?  As Secretary of State Powell said yesterday in Nairobi, "Who's shutting out the Sunnis?  It's the insurgents themselves."  Sunni leaders threatening to boycott the elections because of violence are like inner city drug dealers refusing to send their kids to school because of neighborhood crime. 

Clearly, though, Weisman and the Times side with Diamond in the local vs. national elections dispute, since the article failed to mention the best, most compelling reason why Iraqis on January 30 will not elect assembly members from their local towns, cities and underground terrorist camps: any other system would almost certainly have insured that hardcore Baathists retained political control of at least three western provinces, and a heavy influence over Baghdad.  Average Iraqis detest Baath Party members and often refuse to cooperate with them, even in mundane office settings.  Picture the U.S. allowing seats in Germany's post-war Bundestag to unapologetic Nazis and you'll get a rough idea of the problems local elections would bequeath in Iraq.

Incidentally, McGurk notes that election rules established by the TAL and U.N. advisors require that roughly one-third of each slate's candidates be women.  In other words, if a party gains10 seats in the new Iraqi assembly, three will be female.  That seems remarkable given the misogyny that acts as an organizing principle for much of Iraqi society--even more so when you consider that out of the U.S Congress' 535 members, 82 are female. 

Well, if 43rd Street see fits to rain on the Iraqi election parade, other news sources do not.  Red Zone reader (and good friend) Ron Gustavson sends over a link from that bastion of republican passion and popular sovereignty, Iran.  The Tehran Times--a newspaper so conservative it believes that Al Jazeera is a Zionist conspiracy--voices its approval of elections.

The Iraqis must realize the importance of restoring national sovereignty and must turn out massively for the election to establish a new Iraqi government.

Despite the obstacles some Baathists and foreign elements have put in the way of the electoral process, after three decades of dictatorship, the time is ripe for the Iraqi people to determine their own destiny.

Of course, this is all a little suspicious--like the fox arguing that chickens should have free run of the farm--but at least Tehran isn't denouncing the new Iraqi government as an American puppet.  The article also provides interesting news:

The deputy governor of the Sunni majority city of Tikrit is said to have negotiated with Iraq’s most influential Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, revealing that the election is a common issue that links all ethnic and religious groups, since the establishment of the future government could help to end the occupation.

If true, this development, combined with the possible wavering of the Assocation of Muslim Scholars regarding their opposition to elections, underscore what many observes, like Ali at Free Iraq (thanks to Iraqi Bloggers Central) assert:

I've heard it from many of my Sunni friends that they are concerned about the possibility that the constitution might be written by Shi'a and Kurds mainly, and to be more accurate they are concerned with the Shi'a part more...my belief is that the percentage of Sunnis who will vote will be considerably lower than that of any other group, but it will be still high enough to contradict the analysis of most experts, and we only have to wait for few days to see.

In other words, insha'allah.

Lastly, reader Peter Regas sends a link to a fascinating transcript of a January 5 press conference with General Thomas Metz, commander of the Coalition forces in Iraq.  In this excerpt, Metz responds to a question about recent remarks made by the head of Iraqi intelligence, General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, that the "resistance" numbers "more than 200,000 people," 40,000 of which are "hard-core fighters."

At the 8,000 or 10,000 level, it's certainly a lot more understanding to me, in the metrics and the things that I see, the number of attacks per week, the number of IEDs that are put out, and go through some kind of equation that could come up with a number in the range that General Abizaid talked about.

He then goes on to make more general comments about the composition of the fascist counter-liberation, and its methods and goals for Iraq.

But I quite--as a corps commander, I don't do much with that number, because the insurgency has so many different flavors.  There are hard-core terrorists that are fighting for an ideology.  There are, on the other end of the spectrum, young impoverished men that need to make some money, and so that they periodically join for the only reason to feed their family.  And so there can be differences--and it would change by province...[so] the number of insurgents to me is not necessarily the metric.

The thing that I find so key to this entire fight is that it is not a popular insurgency.  It is not--the tools that they are using--murder, torture, kidnapping indiscriminately children, women--those are tools of someone who is not popularly supported--and that the majority of Iraqis do not want whatever they have as a strategy. 

And that gets me into your--the second part of your question.  What is their strategy?  Other than warning the Coalition to go away, very few of these groups have a common objective, and they certainly don't articulate them.  I do not know of an articulation of a better Iraq via murder, torture, intimidation.  I see a better Iraq via reconstruction, free elections, an economy, using the resources of this great country to its benefit.  So I have a hard time understanding their--now, their strategy, their fighting strategy is to get as much publicity out of each attack as they possibly can...and it is clearly just to intimidate, to make people so fearful that they would rather give up their rights of freedom.  And that is exactly what the Iraqi security forces and the Coalition are fighting against.

May they be victorious.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NOTE:  Nothing I, or anyone, can say about this issue can equal the AP photographs circulating around the world today [December 20].  Criminal thugs pulling election workers out of their car in Baghdad traffic and executing them in the street.  What we see in this atrocity are not "insurgents" "resisting" foreign occupation, but fascists attempting to subvert and destroy the birth of democracy. 

For a deeper and more eloquent analysis of the significance of these photographs go to Belmont Club.

The second war to liberate Iraq has begun, pitting election campaigns against terrorist campaigns.  While we hope and expect politics to win, its enemies are exacting a bloody cost from the Iraqi people. 

Today, two car bombs exploded an hour apart in the Shia-dominated cities of Najaf and Karbala.  According to the AP, the blast in Najaf occurred amidst a funeral procession in Maidan Square, killing forty-nine and wounding 90.  The attack in Karbala, 45 miles northwest, took place near the city's bus station:  13 dead, 30 injured.  This was the second terrorist attack to strike Karbala this week.  On December 15--the opening day of the election campaign--a blast struck the Imam Hussain mosque, killing seven.

In Baghdad today, 30 gunmen armed with grenades and machine-guns ambushed a car carrying five employees of the Election Commission of Iraq, killing three.

Let us pause to consider these events.  Here is a country struggling to stage the first democratic elections in its 3,000 year history.  Meanwhile, paramilitary death-squads are attempting to delay, de-legitimize and destroy the process, even as they prod the country toward civil war.  The values millions of people profess to hold dear--democracy, peace, stability, tolerance, women's rights--are at risk.  And yet the world remains largely silent.

In the 1930s, men volunteered for units like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in order to fight Fascism in Spain.  Today, their tenured sons and daughters sit in comfortable academic seminars where they denounce the "empire" and its nefarious designs on the planet.  (See my "The Empire and Laurie Brand" in the archives.)  Or they create websites like "Iraq Body Count," which tallies the number of civilian deaths--without, however, discriminating between those killed by U.S. troops, fascist paramilitaries, disease, crime or tribal disputes.  Judging by its home page image of a Stealth Bomber dropping its payload, every death is America's fault. 

At least Iraq Body Count is acknowledging and registering the dead; the rest of the world just turns away.  As the New York Times' Thomas Friedman noted last week, the European Union, NATO, the Arab League - all stand to gain from stability in Iraq, yet none are contributing much in the way of manpower or resources to assure that outcome.  The columnist writes,

"We in Iraq have a lot of disappointment with many of our neighbors," Ghazi al-Yawar, Iraq's interim president, told me the other day while he was visiting Washington. Al-Yawar described Iraq's neighbors as sitting on a fence "dangling their legs and munching on pistachios," while "the forces of darkness" try to rip Iraq to shreds. "We do not understand why a vicious suicide bomber who claims the lives of innocent civilians is a terrorist in one country and in Iraq he becomes a freedom fighter," added al-Yawar, a bright and decent man.

As for the U.N.'s treatment of the Iraqis--let us pass over the Oil for Food program scandal and Kofi Annan's description of their liberation as "illegal.  Rather, let us contemplate on the fact the organization plans to send 25 election monitors (perhaps a few more), far less than the 300 it dispatched to East Timor in 1999. 

Why?  According to the Daily Kos, the reason the world ignores Iraq is because

No one, but no one, trusts the Bush Administration on anything.  BushCo is malevolent, untrustworthy and incompetent.  Consider for a moment the risks involved in cooperating with BushCo.  They remain as high as ever.  Especially in the surroundings of a controversial election that is sure to fuel considerable violence.  And what are the potential rewards?  A successful election in Iraq?  And this guarantees what exactly? 

In other words, it's all Bush's fault.  It doesn't matter how many brave Iraqis die in an attempt to move their country to a better place, it doesn't matter that their enemies are the same type of creatures who operated the killing fields of Cambodia, the gulags of the Soviet Union, the concentration camps of Nazi Germany--who have, in every generation throughout history, found the light of human freedom too painful to withstand and so sought to darken it forever.  No, it's Bush's fault.

God knows the current administration has done much to earn such opprobrium.  But I wonder if there aren't other factors at work in the world's seeming apathy to the Iraqis.  Europe calculates that its advantage lies, as always, in letting the U.S. do the heavy-lifting security work while its ministers stand on the sidelines carping at American policies.  The Arab League is too obsessed with anti-Semitism to act in any constructive manner.  And the Left?  Their multicultural, anti-capitalist, anti-globalization impulses have put them in tacit sympathy with the very forces which retard progress in Iraq, in the world and throughout history: tribalism. 

When a group of Islamofascists killed 300 people in Madrid's train stations, Spaniards declared the event was their "9-11."  When a single Muslim extremists killed one man--Theo van Gogh--the Dutch claimed that event was their 9-11.  By that estimation, the Iraqi people suffer the equivalent of numerous 9-11s every week.  Where is the world's sympathy, its outrage, its offers of assistance?  Nous sommes tous Americains, Le Monde famously declared after the real 9-11.  Nous sommes tous Irakiens?  The answer is, distressingly, no.

ADDITIONAL INFO:  Jeff Harrell at shapeofdays.typepad.com alerts me to iraqelect.com.  For more information about the elections (plus a great tutorial on the fascist paramilitaries), go to Iraqi Bloggers Central.

Posted by Steven Vincent at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)