US Rigging Iraq Election?

by DemFromCT

From the NY Times:

Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish leaders quietly adopted new rules over the weekend that will make it virtually impossible for the constitution to fail in the coming national referendum.

The move prompted Sunni Arabs and a range of independent political figures to complain that the vote was being fixed.

Some Sunni leaders who have been organizing a campaign to vote down the proposed constitution said they might now boycott the referendum on Oct. 15. Other political leaders also reacted angrily, saying the change would seriously damage the vote's credibility.

Under the new rules, the constitution will fail only if two-thirds of all registered voters - rather than two-thirds of all those actually casting ballots - reject it in at least three of the 18 provinces.

So, like, will anyone notice? I mean, the whole idea is to have an election, right? That's the end point, (not democracy.... that's hard). And after that, we can just pick up and leave.

"This is a mockery of democracy, a mockery of law," said Adnan al-Janabi, a secular Sunni representative and a member of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's party. "Many Sunnis have been telling me they didn't believe in this democratic process, and now I believe they are vindicated."

The rule change could prove a serious embarrassment to American officials in Iraq, who have spent recent weeks struggling to persuade Sunni Arabs to vote for the constitution and even trying to broker last-minute changes that would make it more palatable to them.

Nah. These people are beyond embarrassment. So, just send Katherine Harris to supervise the damn thing and then tell the Sunnis to get over it if they don't like the results. More details can be found at Juan Cole (it ain't a pretty analysis):

 

In recent months, the Sunni Arabs came to feel that the new constitution deeply disadvantaged them, and it occured to them they they might be able to deploy the 3-province veto, themselves. They became galvanized at the thought that they might be able to derail the accursed constitution invented by the Kurdish warlords and Shiite ayatollahs to deprive them of their fair share of Iraq's resources. This mobilization of Sunnis to vote in the referendum was even cited by Washington's Iraq boosters as a positive sign! But as with all the hype of the boosters, their balloon has been shot down only a couple of weeks after they came up with their glib talking points. It was never very likely that the Sunnis could have derailed the constitution at the polls, though it was just possible if they could have gotten out enough votes in Ninevah (Mosul). Now, having watched their country taken over by foreigners, watched their women humiliated with foreign troops searching their underwear drawers, having watched their army dissolved, their relatives fired from government jobs in the tens of thousands, they have even been explicitly informed that they are not as good as the Kurds (who would never have put up with their own 3-province veto being subjected to a stealth veto if they had not liked the new constitution). (For a glimpse of what educated, middle class young Sunni Arab women think of the constitution, see Riverbend.

Sectarian violence already amounts to a low-intensity, unconventional civil war in Iraq. I'd say this entire constitutional process has ensured the intensification and continuation of the Sunni Arab guerrilla war for many years.

If the Democrats (read: leaders running for President) are waiting for this Constitution thing to play out before speaking up, note that things are going to get worse, not better – and things are not good now. The Dem rank-and-file have been right about this all along, and until the leaders realize that, they have been neutered in any real discussion of America's problems. The time to speak up is now. This is not the same as holding fire on Miers (which is wise) until we know what we're dealing with. If they do not present alternatives, they become complicit in insuring that there will be civil war in Iraq, and no such person will ever become President, at least not unless Katherine Harris is put in charge of supervising every state election.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

You know, I would acccept a "Hillary to speak after referendum", or "Biden to address Iraq in November" so as to not paint a target. But leadership is too out of touch here. 25% of the country may be anti-war but the other 75% of the country wants an alternative policy, not silence.

[emptywheel]

At the rate they're going BushCo is going to suggest they make each Sunni count for 3/5 a vote. Then they'll hail it as a great compromise sure to bind the country for all time.

Meanwhile, in other acts of great democracy, the US is consulting with Israel on what should happen after we change the regime in Syria.

The sources added that senior American officials, in recent conversations with their Israeli counterparts, have expressed interest in Israel's assessments of Assad's possible successors, asking who Israel thought could replace him and still maintain Syria's stability.

You know, the well-established principle of One-Israeli, One Syrian vote.

[Mimikatz]

It is interesting that the tough and very thoughtful guys and gals at Democracy Arsenal are coming around to the view that we ought to withdraw from Iraq next year regardless of the admittedly awful consequences they foresee because we aren't going to make it better and in all probability will make it worse. And there is just no upside in that calculation.

These are the people who needed to come around. If Biden/Hillary have lost them, they no longer have any intellectual underpinning for their position. This could be very significant, and if it isn't, it just shows that the hard line Dems don't understand the landscape any better than they understand politics. Bankruptcy is not a platform one can run very far on.

[DemFromCT]

speaking of politics:

Two final lead notes for today. First, the political climate in which Bush is trying to refashion his domestic agenda may be changing quickly. Polling between early September and last week suggests that the public no longer thinks hurricane relief should be nearly the priority for the federal government that they thought it should be a few weeks ago -- and that Iraq and the economy are re-emerging as top concerns they want the government to address. More on the polling data below. Unclear what this might mean for Bush, since the war and the economy (read: gas prices) remain troublesome sticking points for him. But these results don't bode well for his newly adjusted domestic agenda, which centers on rebuilding New Orleans.

[DemFromCT]

my AM story was on the iraqi vote. And now:

New Rules on Iraqi Vote May Violate Standards, U.N. Says

The United Nations said today that newly adopted rules for the coming Iraqi constitutional referendum appeared to violate accepted international standards for elections.

[TF6S]

How you came to the conclusion that the U.S. is rigging the election is beyond my capacity, but I'm slow in that conspiratorial kind of way.

Anyway, this incredibly stupid referendum was reversed by the National Assembly (the IRAQI National Assembly that is).

Iraq assembly changes mind, defuses vote rule row