This election season, some characteristics of Iraqi politics are new, such as a shift away from divisive, overt sectarian campaign rhetoric – among Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds alike – that has dominated public political discourse since US forces invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003. Taking its place are more bread-and-butter issues, such as local services and combating corruption.
By George, I think they might be getting the hang of this.
And heck, in some ways the Iraqis have already caught up with America!
[A late-March poll] found that only 6 percent of Iraqis had trust in political parties – the lowest for any institution in Iraq – and that parliament fared only slightly better, with 8 percent of those polled voicing trust in it.
My longer range hope for Iraq has always been that democracy and rule of law would provide an alternative to autocracy or mullah-run government that would set an example in the Arab Moslem world (and, because Iraq is mostly Shia Arab, even in Persian but Shia Iran).
Jihadis would like to disrupt this process. We should help Iraqis defend it:
In March 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq, and in June 2004, it tendered sovereignty of the country back to the Iraqis. Iraq’s first elections took place in January 2005 with images of purple fingertips marking the milestone, but elections alone do not make a democracy. The record of the U.S. in fostering Iraqi democracy has been mixed, but despite the errors and setbacks, the U.S. still has an important opportunity to support something unusual: a stable, Arab democracy.
(Although I strongly disagree with the idea that de-Baathification was a mistake. But the main point is that we have an opportunity right now that we should not blow.)
Of course, dealing with the militias in Iraq that are no longer needed to fight ISIL is necessary to make sure ballots and not bullets are the ultimate arbiter of political disputes.
And in a wonderful example of how you have to look at the long run, an Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush 43 for his offense of liberating Iraq is now running for office in the far more free post-Saddam Iraq. Mind you, as a vile Sadrist, I hope he loses.
But one wonders if his life path as a Shia would have included running for parliament if Saddam or his evil spawn ruled Iraq the last fifteen years. I imagine he never pondered that.
There is a long way to go for rule of law and real democracy. Voting isn't enough to create a democracy. But Hell, that takes time given that the Germans apparently still don't trust themselves with tanks 73 years after the fall of the Nazi regime, fearing they might go all lebensraum and racial purity on Europe, as I recently noted:
God, Germany's excuses for not spending on defense are tiresome. If after all this time as a free democracy the Germans seriously believe that if they own too many tanks they'll be tempted to revive their "legacy" to conquer Europe and set up concentration camps, maybe NATO just needs to pull back and nuke Germany from orbit.
In 60 years under our influence, Iraqis may become as unwilling to defend democracy as today's Germany!
UPDATE: Oh Hell, Moqtada effing Sadr's party is doing well:
The political coalition of influential Shia religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr took an early lead in Iraq's national elections in partial returns announced late on Sunday by the Iraqi electoral commission.
I have long said we'd regret letting that three-time insurrectionist live to undermine Iraqi democracy and I fear I was all too right.
