[Marxism] Iraq elections: the last, best hope for "hearts and minds" -- i.e. a pro-US army that will fight

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Palestinian elections, carried out their assigned task, creating a
Palestinian leader the US will talk to. They will explain to him that is
job is to accept the surrender terms offered by Ariel Sharon -- smash
Palestinian resistance and get, in return, a sprinkle of statelets whose
job will be to police the Palestinian people for Israel.

Now, the Post, says the Iraqi elections have a chance to do the same
job.  Establish a "Shia" government that will seek to crush opponents of
the occupation, Sunni or otherwise.  This, they hope, is "the power of
elections."

No mention of the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars offer to drop its
boycott of the elections if the US will agree to a withdrawal timetable.
No mention of the plank in the Shia election platform that calls for the
same thing.

No, the job of this scandalous fraud is to establish a government that
will represent Washington in Iraq?

Can they pull it off or is this (as I suspect) an electoralist fantasy?

Watch this space for further developments.
Fred Feldman





washingtonpost.com
Eidtorial
The Power of Elections



Tuesday, January 11, 2005; Page A14


DESPITE LIMITED competition and a less than overwhelming turnout, the
Palestinian presidential elections on Sunday must be judged a success:
They gave a mandate to a new president, Mahmoud Abbas, who has opposed
the use of violence against Israel and promised to reform Palestinian
government. The prospect of democratic change in the Middle East, as
well as an Israeli-Palestinian peace, has gotten a badly needed boost.
Now the question is whether Iraq can similarly gain from the elections
it has scheduled in less than three weeks, or whether those Iraqis and
Americans who argue that a vote will do more harm than good and should
be postponed are right. The question is not an easy one, but the
arguments for sticking to a Jan. 30 election date are stronger.

Opponents of the election schedule frequently misstate the nature of the
terrible violence that afflicts Baghdad and Sunni-populated areas of
Iraq. The central conflict no longer lies, if it ever did, between a
U.S.-led occupation force and a resentful population; nor is it mainly a
battle between those who favor construction of a Western-style democracy
and foreign and domestic Islamic extremists. The larger trouble is the
resistance of much of Iraq's former elite to a political system that
would have the effect of empowering the majority Shiite community and
reducing the Arab Sunnis to an influence commensurate with the 20
percent of the population they probably represent.

Saddam Hussein's former Baathist cadres desperately fight that prospect
and dream of restoring the old regime. But even nonviolent Sunni leaders
seek to negotiate greater power for their community before any vote is
held. In this they are supported by neighboring Sunni governments, which
feel threatened by both Shiite rule and electoral democracy. Although
they may not abet the insurgency, the Sunni proponents of postponement
effectively use it as leverage on the United States and the emerging
Shiite leadership. Their proposals are often disingenuous. For example,
the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars has offered to
support elections provided U.S. troops withdraw from the country. This
might please most Iraqis, but its main effect would be to strip the
Shiite community of its main defense against a continuing Sunni
insurgency.

Stability in Iraq will require the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities
to come to terms on a new national constitution. Shiite leaders will
surely seek that accord even if Sunnis are underrepresented in the
national assembly that the elections will create. Once the constitution
is hammered out, it must be ratified by Sunnis as well as Shiites, and
there will be another set of elections for a permanent government. The
main effect of this initial vote will be to empower Shiite leaders and
give Iraq for the first time a government supported by a majority of the
country. If the balloting is postponed, Sunni insurgents will be the
ones empowered, and violence will trump democracy as a means of
influence. Seen in that light, it's not hard to conclude that the
elections must go ahead.



C 2005 The Washington Post Company



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