Hope and Change in Iraq

Reuel Marc Gerecht: The Elections Show a Functioning Democracy, if They Can Keep it

(Weekly Standard)  Reuel Marc Gerecht is a contributing editor at The Weekly Standard and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

---

In Iraq we are now where we should have been in 2005 if the Sunni Arab community had not staged a bloody revanchist insurrection. The parliamentary elections on March 7 gave us a good snapshot of the real Iraq: an insecure Sunni Arab minority more or less united in one bloc, the Shiite Arab majority building self-confidence and naturally fracturing along religious/secular lines, and the Kurdish (predominantly Sunni) minority united against the Arabs but internally fractious and increasingly dissatisfied with the two families who’ve ruled Kurdish politics for decades.

At first glance, we’ve got a four-way horse race, where shifting coalitions could produce surprising results (a Kurdish-religious Shiite coalition, a Sunni Arab-secular Shiite coalition, or even a Sunni Arab-Kurdish alliance, for example). Although the returns aren’t final at this writing, it appears Shiite prime minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law slate has come in first; the Iraqiya coalition, which represents Arab Sunnis and some secular Shiites, a close second; and the National Alliance, which pulls together a wide array of Shiites, especially from the more religious south, a close third. The Kurds, meanwhile, split their vote between the Kurdish Alliance, which is the disputatious marriage of the Barzani and Talabani political machines, and the feisty independent Change Movement led by Nawshirwan Mustafa.

If this outcome had been reached in 2005 we all could have popped the champagne. Instead, in 2005, only the Shiite Arabs and Kurds went en masse to the urns. Since then we’ve had three years of hell and one year of purgatory (Muslims have no intermediate stage between heaven and hell, but the new Iraq is going politically and theologically where no Arabs have gone before). Most pivotally, we had the Battle of Baghdad in 2006-07.

If Iraq continues down a democratic path, the results of that battle-not the presence of U.S. troops over the last seven years-will likely prove to have decided the country’s fate. We will soon get to see whether Iraq’s Sunni Arabs really can live with the military defeat they suffered in 2007 and the political defeat they suffered last week. We will soon get to see if they can live without the Americans (who, in a truly surreal turnaround, are now the protectors of the very Sunni Arabs who once drove the insurgency against the invader). Politically, the Iraqi Shia are unlikely to be generous with their erstwhile Sunni overlords. Washington can continue to encourage them to be so. But in Iraqi Shiite eyes what Washington has been doing since the surge began in 2007-when General David Petraeus started paying Sunni tribes to stand against al Qaeda and with the Americans-is bribing the Sunnis to behave. The administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have wanted, truth be told, the Shia to accept a kind of affirmative action: For peace and a quicker American withdrawal, we’ve wanted the Shia to give the Arab Sunnis political and economic guarantees that exceed Sunni Arab electoral power. (The Arab Sunni community represents at most 20 percent of Iraq’s population, the Shiite Arabs about 60 percent, and the Kurds the remaining 20 percent.)

In a very Arab way, the Americans have been trying to fight sectarianism through a reward system based on sect. Good democrats that we are, Americans don’t say this. But ideally that’s what we’d like to see: a firm informal understanding that gives the Arab Sunnis a political check on the Shiite majority. Such an arrangement has become ever more appealing in Washington as the specter of Iranian influence in Iraq has risen. Although Washington’s foreign-policy establishment is usually too sophisticated to say flatly that Shiite equals pro-Persian, a pro-Arab-Sunni reflex is deeply embedded in the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, and much of the think tank world that feeds the government. It’s an odd view, given the history of relations between Iraqi and Iranian Shiites, which have been defined by suspicion, animosity, and envy more than brotherly love. Still, it persists.

Deeply scarred by Baathist rule and savage insurgent Sunni attacks, and well aware of the disastrous economic state of their religious brethren in southern Iraq, the Iraqi Shiite political establishment will likely give the Sunnis no more than what their numbers demand in parliament (and that may not be much). No matter what happens in the formation of a new government, the Shia are unlikely to increase state subventions to Sunni Arab paramilitary organizations-the anti-al Qaeda “Sons of Iraq” groups that the Americans want incorporated into the Iraqi Army and that the Shiite community deeply distrusts. The pre-election disqualification of some Sunni candidates was probably in part a bit of Shiite electoral hanky-panky against popular Sunni leaders, who may or may not have a bothersome Baathist background. But it was above all an assertion of Shiite determination that “never again” means “never again.”

[red-roses]

A little glimpse from the past.

Remember when cowardly george bush ran away in the plane after reading the school children when the 9/11 tragedy happened only to show up a few days later to give his phony photo performance at ground zero speaking through the blow horn? You could tell that he never gave a damn for those who perished on that fatal day. In fact, your were able o tell that the tears he squirted at the TV cameras during his cheap performance at ground zero were tears of joy and not of sorrow. And if you recall george bush gave another one his cheap photo op performances when he showed up in new Orleans a year after the devastating hurricane happened. You were able to tell that his showing up in New Orleans was merely for show and not because he cared?

My husband John R served his country well as a Marine Lieutenant on Iwo Jima, was wounded and received a silver star for his actions. Three of our sons volunteered to serve their country with pride and honor in Viet Nam. Whelans?s were no ?Chicken Hawks? as are bush, cheney, rumsfeld (WHO WAS IN THE SERVICE, BUT SAW NO COMBAT. He was later given the old heave ho, THANK GOD) I Cannot believe their boldness and audacity to want to send our youth when they were not willing to go yesterday.
--HELEN WHELAN, WIFE AND MOTHER OF 3 VETERANS.

?admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans, Major combat operations in Iraq have ended in the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed? (Another grandiose lie from the egotistical hypocrite lying coward bush May 1, 2003)

?bush lands on the aircraft carrier strutting his stuff, and I have a hard time walking. How dare you! That?s how I look at the president. HOW DARE YOU!! It amazes me how he does it with a smile too.?
FIELDS BLACK,A PERSIAN GULF VETERAN

A SOLDIERS VIEW OF THE IRAQ WAR MARCH 5, 2004

I am a Calvary scout in the United States Army. I am stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas. We returned home Tuesday and I would like to comment on this war from a specialized soldier?s eyes. I honestly think the president lied to all of us. After seeing first hand what was in most parts of Iraq, my whole company could not fathom a threat of any means. I love America, and will defend her when called upon, but in this case there was not a real threat. By the way the THANKSGIVING PHOTO-OP at the airport was only open to pro-bush soldiers. We were screened unknowingly about four days before he showed up in secret. We didn?t know he was coming, but looking back, all the questions we were asked were designed to weed out the antiwar soldiers.

If you recall at george bush?s first two inaugurals there were an awful lot of demonstrations. And if you recall his first inaugural was a dark rainy, dreary, dismal, dreadful and very depressing day in Washington DC. It felt as if a huge black cloud hovered over the entire nation. As if we were being cursed expecting for a bad omen to happen. And it did starting with the 9/11 tragedy..bye

[infantryman1968]

Hope and Change in Iraq

LOL!