Pete Townshend, Thou Shouldst Be Living at This Hour
Diana Moon tips me to the early returns from Iraq, and the early reaction in some of its parts. Returns:
The election commission last night announced shocking preliminary results of the elections in 11 Iraqi provinces. The results “after counting 89% of the votes in Baghdad showed that the UIA [United Iraqi Alliance, the main religious Shiite coalition — ed.] won 1,403,901 votes, the Accord Front [also referred to as Iraqi Consensus Front; main religious Sunni Arab group — ed.] won 451,782 while Allawi’s list [Iraqi List, secular — ed.] won 327,174”, said a spokesman of the election commission.
That is, the theocratic Shi’ite ruling coalition got almost two thirds of the vote in Baghdad itself - forget Basra and Nasiriyah and the Holy Cities of X, Y and Z, but in the quondam most cosmopolitan city in the Arab world, recent seat of a ruling Sunni-secular government and region of the country most exposed to all that benevolent hegemony we’ve been showering on Mesopotamia.
The reaction, from Our Correspondent and various loser parties? Fraud!
It is obvious now that the Sh’eat-Kurdish dominated commission which we hoped would act with integrity and transparency closed an eye on the violations committed by the Kurdish and religious She’at parties.
Lost in last week’s celebratory noises were reports of ballot hijinx and security personnel openly bearing pictures of UIA candidates. There are four possibilities, and I invite you to spin any or all of them as great victories for our Grand Strategy:
* the US is okay with the theocrats defrauding the electorate
* the US simply can’t stop the theocrats from defrauding the electorate
* the US didn’t even realize the theocrats were defrauding the electorate
* the electorate just plan prefers the side the US least wanted and Iran most wanted to win the election
Diana plumps for the last of the four options. Paraphrasing, you may think that Salam Pax was an oddball in Iraqi political terms, but the Iraq the Model boys are no less so - the bulk of the country wants sectarianism, even the bulk of Baghdad, site of the sprawling Sadr City development.
She may well be right. And that’s bad enough. But if it is fraud, then what the Glorious Project has accomplished so far is to create one more Arab country where the ruling party can hold elections that its control of the Army, police and bureaucracy allows it to steal. This is truly the dawn of a new era of Muslim governance!
And if it’s not fraud? That might be even worse. The out parties in Iraq are convinced it’s fraud. Probably some of the ruling coalition’s supporters think it’s fraud - they’re just glad it was their side pulling it off. And outside Iraq, in the bulk of the largely Sunni Arab and Muslim world, ordinary folks and malcontents alike think it’s fraud too, and figure that the United States swept in to foster and guarantee a corrupt, anti-Sunni Shi’ite theocracy beholden to Persia. This is the “beacon of reform” that’s supposed to beckon them.
Every one of us, and I include Ayatollah Ali Khameni of the Holy City of Qom in that number, can be proud of having dedicated, as of tonight, 2157 American lives and 7533-plus wounded service members, some maimed for life, to that achievement. Whichever it is.
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Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
December 20, 2005 @ 11:21 pm
Hey, weren’t people saying that we should try to have better relations with Iran? Mission accomplished!
Comment by simon —
December 21, 2005 @ 12:21 am
Meet the new cost. Same as the old cost.
Comment by Gary Farber —
December 21, 2005 @ 3:12 am
Um, the early reports were about a full day before you posted; but no matter.
The Sunnis have, of course, claimed fraud, as well as Allawi and crew. Who could have predicted?
Quite a shocker, that.
Trackback by Kesher Talk —
December 21, 2005 @ 8:10 am
The vultures are circling
Many of us who have been rooting for the Iraqis to form a stable moderate government are very anxious. Of course, Iraqis who have been working hard and risking much are even more anxious. But I think some people are…
Comment by Bill —
December 21, 2005 @ 9:53 am
Isn’t this just the obvious outcome of installing a democracy in Iraq? Has there been a single democratic Muslim country that hasn’t voted in a religious Government? Even Turkey, whose constitution states that the military must take over the country in the event of a religious Government taking over has actually had to do it, haven’t they? The only reason Pakistan isn’t run by a Taliban-style government is because of a military coup.
If you go to a Muslim country and force them to become a democracy, you should expect these results.
Trackback by Kesher Talk —
December 21, 2005 @ 9:54 am
The vultures are circling
[ UPDATE: Kurdo says people figured out how to remove the ink and there was lots of fraud. Something that systemic, you could really make a case for a do-over. UPDATE: The horsetrading and coalition-building begins. ] Many of us…
Comment by Gary Farber —
December 21, 2005 @ 10:22 am
”Has there been a single democratic Muslim country that hasn’t voted in a religious Government?”
And isn’t that horrible? Man, good thing Europeans have never voted for a ”religious governments.”
And ”religious governments” are all alike, of course. Christian Democrats, Taliban, Justice and Development Party: same thing. No point in noting any trivial differences.
Comment by Barry —
December 21, 2005 @ 11:19 am
”…can be proud of having dedicated, as of tonight, 2157 American lives and 7533-plus wounded service members, some maimed for life, to that achievement. Whichever it is. ”
The accomplishment, from the administration’s point of view, and from the PoV of most Republicans, was the re-election of George, and the stengthening of GOP power.
Comment by Nell —
December 21, 2005 @ 11:22 am
In light of Chalabi’s results (.34% of the vote last I saw), a reader of Laura Rozen’s asks a good question: What the hell is he doing meeting with Ambassador Khalilzad ”to discuss the countours of a new government”? There wouldn’t seem to be much to discuss in the normal course of things… But I imagine the conversation revolves around how to insert or keep the correct people in the oil ministry. (Chalabi’s campaign posters make the point straighforwardly enough.)
Comment by Barry —
December 21, 2005 @ 11:33 am
Question - Does the UIA look like it’ll have enough votes to have an overriding majority? I assume that there are some supermajority requirements in the constitution. But 2/3 in Baghdad, plus (presumably) much closer to 100% in the Shiite dominated provinces sounds like a strong majority.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
December 21, 2005 @ 1:30 pm
A commenter over on Crooked Timber shows the extent to which some will go to make lemonade out of a bucket of George Bush’s piss:
It certainly looks like Iraq is going to be divided into subnational areas with high autonomy. Not necessarily a bad outcome, given that a strong central state has never worked.
”Sorry about stealing your car and driving it off a bridge, Dude–but what the hell, you did say last week the clutch was sticking, so it’s probably for the best.”
Comment by Lenny Bailes —
December 21, 2005 @ 1:54 pm
Just a sidenote: Pete Townsend is definitely living and appears to be well.
Comment by David T —
December 21, 2005 @ 10:05 pm
What happened was predictable: Optimistic Americans heard from their friends in Iraq that the Shi’ites were by no means wholly sectarianists and that many of them would vote for moderate and secular candidates who could work with the Sunni parties to end or at least marginalize the insurgency.
The only problem is that the people who said this were from an unrepresentative section of Iraq–the educated middle class. These are the people who are most likely to talk to the American media, and for this reason we got a skewed impression of the Iraqi electorate (fraud may have padded the religious parties’ victory but it is unlikely by itself to have caused it).
Comment by Backword Dave —
December 22, 2005 @ 10:25 am
Following from #12 - and still spelling his name with a ”h”
Er, semi-colon close-bracket (Word Press can be weird.)
Comment by Talldave —
December 22, 2005 @ 3:34 pm
LOL I wonder how many people even realize the difference between Shia Arabs and Shia Persians. It’s a big one. The Arabs are not looking to be told what to do by Persians. It’s purely an alliance of convenience, and certainly NOT one of mutual love.
always find it amusing how people think democracy has failed when ”their” party doesn’t win. Who knows, maybe the religious parties will do a decent job of governing; the Iraqis trust their clerics more than their politicians, and maybe for good reason. Regardless, they’re light-years ahead of Saddam and any other Mideast Muslim country, and if they don’t govern well, the process of democracy will remove them in 4 years, or perhaps sooner if the Constitution is amended.
Comment by Bill —
December 22, 2005 @ 4:52 pm
Gary Farber: I’m not sure I understand your comment. You seem to be attacking what you think I said with your first paragraph and attacking what *you* said with your last paragraph.
.
What I was saying was simply that Iraq electing a religious Government is a foolish thing to act shocked about. You’re the one bringing value judgements into it and not conflating Islamic religious governments with other religious governments.
Comment by Jim Henley —
December 22, 2005 @ 5:56 pm
Talldave, Hit and Run’s top cockeyed optimist here, on my blog? I feel strangely honored!
Naturally I can’t share your sunny outlook, which is not just based on the assumption that there can, structurally, be a meaningful election in Iraq in four years, and that if is possible there will be one, and that the very existence of elections makes the outcomes of them ”right and just.” I assume that, though you hang out on Hit and Run, you don’t think of yourself as a libertarian, since libertarians are never that sanguine about the electoral process. Of course, I once thought libertarians were never sanguine about untrammelled executive power too - at 45 I’m still learning!
Ruling parties have almost boundless power to manipulate elections, particularly when the distinction between them and the security services is notional.