Good grief, have you read the Lefty blogs here in America? They're still enraged over dangling chads in Florida 2000 and are eagerly planning their 2009 show trials for everyone from supporters of the war in Iraq to global warming "deniers." Where's their spirit of reconciliation? And they expect Iraqis to forget dangling corpses?
It is too much to expect Shias, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds to love each other given the destruction that Saddam's regime inflicted on Iraqi society. All I expect from Iraqis is that they let elections and rule of law settle their very real grievances. Not all Sunni Arabs are complicit in Saddam's crimes. As long as death squads are suppressed, the guilty can be properly identified, prosecuted, and punished without harming the innocent. And with rule of law, the innocent won't have to fear they are next in line just because they are Sunni Arabs.
So with this caveat in mind, Iraqi's parliamentary passage of a local elections law is still good news:
Agreement was reached after Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish and Turkomen lawmakers adopted a U.N. compromise to form a parliamentary committee to review disputes regarding Kirkuk separately so the elections could go ahead elsewhere.
The new law required the committee to make recommendations for separate legislation on Kirkuk by March 2009.
U.N. envoy Staffan di Mistura, who has shuttled relentlessly between the political blocs to pressure them to approve the law, told The Associated Press that preparations for the vote would begin immediately.
"Today is an important day for Iraq and democracy as the parliament found a compromise over election law," he said. "This will help Iraq and Iraqis to express their opinions by voting for their candidates in the provinces."
They don't need to love each other--just refrain from shooting and bombing each other to settle disagreements. Heck, we should look forward to negative campaign ads in Iraq!
