Milestones and Turning Points

by DemFromCT

The Iraqi election is over, and it was a wonderful thing. Any day where no one gets blown up in Iraq is a wonderful day. And as supporters of democracy, Americans must be proud. Except... there's this nagging feeling that despite the warm and fuzzies, something's not quite right.

But even some Republicans urged caution in assessing the results yesterday, while congressional Democrats called on the White House to use the election to accelerate the transition and create the conditions for the redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq.

In Baghdad for election day, Republican Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said the vote provided a "second chance," but he also warned that the successful day should not be interpreted as a solution to Iraq's problems. "Really, in many ways, they're just beginning," he said in an interview with NBC's "Today" show.

Anthony H. Cordesman, a Persian Gulf military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed. He said the vote is not the long-awaited turning point but rather a trigger for launching a new political process next year that will include amending a constitution. That, he said, will better determine whether Iraq has a chance of emerging out of turmoil.

So the Bush Administration will celebrate, and the American people, sometimes gloriously naive but always optimistic, will hold its collective breath and see what happens. A milestone is not a turning point, and that means that the next six months are how the election ineed to be judged, not by the immediate 24 hours past. Did Sunnis vote in number in order to reject the Constitution? Did the Shi'a elect an Iranian-style theocratic party? How did al-Sadr do? Will the Kurds work with either of the other two factions? And will the Constitution be amended or have we merely formalized the seeds for civil war? Will these events bring closer the day Americans leave, or not?

The same media that was so willing to gush over Mission Accomplished on the aircraft carrier is only slightly less orgasmic over the election. But this sober view of what's going on is well worth a read by everyone (via Juan Cole):

As inspiring as it was to see millions of Iraqis go to the polls under daunting circumstances, analysts cautioned Thursday that improvement in security and the potential for withdrawal of U.S. troops would depend on a chain of events stretching a year or more into the future.

...

Emeritus Political Science Prof. Joe Farry of St. John's University in Collegeville, who has been following the Iraqi constitution-writing process, sees potential trouble ahead.

"A 'second chance' amendment was tacked on to the constitution four days before the October ratification," Farry said. It creates a special committee of the new parliament which will have four months to propose a package of amendments. The whole package must then be adopted or rejected by a majority vote of parliament.

If it passes that hurdle, it will be submitted to a national ratification vote, with the provision that if the package fails by a two-thirds margin in any three provinces, the whole deal fails.

The Sunni parties have campaigned on a promise of changing the constitution. The theory that the Sunnis will abandon the insurgency because they can get their needs met through the political process depends heavily on this reconsideration of the constitution.

In any and all cases, the celebration is a tad premature. Iraq is still in the midst of a low level civil war, and electing the opposing sides doesn't end the conflict. oh, and setting oneself up for 'victory' in this muddled situation is looking mors short-sighted every day.

Comments

[emptypockets]

Any Freudians in the audience? I had a dream last night: I was sneaking in to a Dallas-Cleveland playoff game (baseball). The Dallas stadium was built low, behind a school, and there were immense crowds surrounding it, all trying to see the game free. As we passed the fields near it, the Texans were shouting at us, "Keep your boot suits off the fields!" but we snuck by anyway, and after a lot of sneaking about and pushing through crowds & giving up on bad seats, we were able to find an empty spot behind the school with a good view of the diamond. To my surprise, many in the Texas crowd were holding up political signs about Iraq. There were a very small number with signs showing a political cartoon (in the dream, a well-known cartoon) with a pair of queasy-looking Democrats parachuting and I think waving white flags. (Caption may have been something like, "Democrat strategy on Iraq.") But much much more of the crowd was holding protest signs that were satires of the first. Many of them showing a pair of deflated Republicans in free-fall, with a parachute in the shape of Superman (also deflated) and similar legend, "Republican strategy on Iraq," or other ones I wish I could remember, with either Democrats, Republicans, or the American People in free-fall attached to non-working parachutes in various forms that were the focus of the satire. I remember being really surprised but satisfied to see so many cheering for Texas but also protesting current Iraq policy (note that about equal numbers of the signs protested Dems, Reps, & the public, but all were against status quo in Iraq).

I'll let some of you psychoanalyze it. My own first pass? Well, here's a hint: I think the Dallas baseball team in my dream was actually the Cowboys (and of course you know who the Cleveland team was). Then there's the "boots on the field" reference, the formalized combat that is inherent in baseball, and the sparring crowds. I could also mention that earlier in the dream I was fighting a 2-foot alligator with a small ax (it had the ax, I was barehanded) and that I believe that alligator turned out to be a young orphan girl who ended up coming along with us to the ballgame... but perhaps that's too deep a view of this American psyche.

[Mimikatz]

The speeches Bush has recently given seem bizarre to me for their insistence on "victory" in Iraq as a prerequisite for withdrawal of troops. I understand about the professor who believes that public support depends on optimism about victory and not numbers of casualties (and think it superficial because it does not take into account the seriousness of the threat the target of the war posed or how we got into it), but in Iraq unless victory is defined in a meaningless way, how and when will it ever be in sight?

I suppose they believe someone like Chalabi or Allawi will win and will be strong enough to unite the warring factions. Or something. But those who really understand the Iraqi Constitution say that it is recipe for breakup and potentially disaster. So by raising expectations, isn't Bush doing the opposite of what he should be doing? And isn't that his problem, because as he defines victory as functioning democracy and people see something else happening, won't support plummet further?

I think it clear that large parts of the public are simply deciding that the war isn't worth the costs in life, limb and treasure, and that, in any event, "victory" is pretty elusive and leads to an open-ended commitment.

[al-Fubar]

Mimikatz, I've wondered about "victory" also. If Bush has turned even slightly reality-based (miracles are always possible!), it might be just a rhetorical ploy to define whatever he does as victory.

After all, if we pull out because of Jack Murtha, the terrorists win. But if we pull out because the Commander in Chief has determined that we've won, that's victory.

-- Rick

[DemFromCT]

That's George Aiken; declare victory and leave. Woulda worked in the 70's too.

[Roosevelt Democrat]

The election of 2000 was a wonderful display of democracy in action ... except that it may have been stolen, except that it disenfranchised some minority voters, except that the "winners" did not produce the results that they promised during the election. Democracy is as much about long-term results as it is about process. Time will be needed to reveal the effectiveness of this latest Iraqi election in bringing about democracy and stability to that nation.