First things first -- hats off to all the Iraqi citizens who quite literally risked their lives to vote. Americans could learn something in this regard from Iraqis and Ukrainians, who do not take their rights for granted.
Now comes the hard part -- not only sticking around to preserve the transitional process, but making sure that it's genuine, that this wasn't just all something to legitimize the handing over of power to Ahmad Chalabi. Chalabi has already distinguished himself quite poorly, getting us into this mess in the first place with his wild cakewalk estimations, produced as they were from the comfort of a London hotel. Since then, Chalabi stands accused of passing on US intelligence to Iran, and is currently under indictment from the current Iraqi government. Still, inexplicably, he remains a player, because Iraq is (and probably always will be) riven along ethnic and religious faultlines, and Chalabi has proven adept at playing factions off against each other. Chalabi is clearly a corrupt kleptocrat.
If the transition is to remain with the current interim government of Allawi and friends, the challenge then becomes making sure that Allawi does not return to a Saddam-ite thugocracy. "Well," you may say, "even if Allawi is something of a thug, how could he possibly be as bad as Saddam? After all, Saddam was nearly as bad as Hitler." To that I would merely point out that Saddam, like Hitler, like all of them, had to start somewhere. I'm just saying that should Dr. Allawi retain power, we must remain honest and vigilant and observant as to how he treats dissidents, and yes, even insurgents and terrorists and rebels.
Finally, we should beware of Bushie triumphalism. It has already begun, and the media is in the tank for the time being. It is guaranteed to be a staple of the State Of The Union speech later this week. By lowering expectations, and counting on low turnout and high bloodbath quotient, they have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
We should not forget what this effort has cost us thus far, what it will continue to cost us in the near future, and how these people have been dead wrong about damn near everything. They would like to use this fleeting moment of seeming triumph as leverage with which they can enact the rest of their agenda -- including the evisceration of Social Security. Now more than ever, their words and deeds will require scrutiny.
3 comments:
The bolstered security apparently did the trick, in insuring that the election-day violence was relatively low. But even US forces acknowledged that it required practically bringing all traffic within a certain radius of teh polling places to a standstill. It's just not feasible for anything besides a day or two. So the upcoming month will tell the real tale. I think it really depends on how long it takes to determine the outcome and count all the votes, so there actually might be a post-election lull -- then when a winner is declared, all hell breaks loose again.
As for us being there to maintain security, we are building a dozen or so permanent bases, plus a $1.5 billion state-of-the-art embassy. So even after the incoming government "invites" us to leave, we'll still maintain a presence there for some time.
And that's assuming we don't immediately jump from this to the next "low-hanging fruit", be it Iran or Syria. In that case, the Iraq bases could become "temporary staging areas" for logistics and such. They could also just park a few aircraft carriers out in the Gulf, but I assume they're building all those bases for a long-term reason.
Craig:
I see your point about British post-WW1 visions going awry, but the thing is, there's just no way to make a clean break here. This really was the least awful of our options at this time. Yes, we never shoulda woulda coulda, but here we are. Sadly, C+ Augustus feels he has already had his "accountability moment"; the civilians and troops in Iraq get to deal with the immediate consequences.
Something had to be done at this point; this is probably the best something we were going to get out of Bushco. And the one thing on which I actually agree with Bush is that postponing the elections was just not a sensible option. Not in the "we gotta get the fuck out" sense, but in the sense that we just can't budge for these fuckers.
vK:
The post-WW2 German elections are a fair analogy, I guess. Lots of armchair generals have wished aloud for a Marshall Plan of sorts. But Germany and Japan had much more ethnically homogenous populations (and even then, look how long we had an occupation gov't in Japan), so obviously they're not entirely analogous.
As for Sistani, the more I read about him, the more I can live with him, but that could be Iraq fatigue talking. I am just naturally squeamish at anyone from something called The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Call me crazy.
He at least sounds willing to deal. But he's old, and no one seems to know who his successor would be. (Moqtada al-Sadr, perhaps?) So again, we not be getting the devil we think we know.
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