Encouraging sign, I guess, political ploy or not. But, that story does not say the National Dialogue Front has reversed its boycott; nor that the banning of any of the allegedly Baathist candidates has been reversed.
It doesn’t say they reversed any boycott, it says they’re letting some former Iraqi army officers back into the Iraqi army. They accepted tens of thousands back into the army during the US surrender negotiations a couple of years ago and as soon as the US agreed a timetable to leave they kicked them all out again. Like the article says it’s just a cynical electioneering move.
And it doesn’t make any difference if they do reverse the boycott. No matter what happens the Sunnis will remain a powerless minority and Shiite Iranian exile parties will hold all the power in the Arab part of Iraq. Maliki will make a deal with some tiny Sunni party that will take the lowest bribe after the election and then he’ll be able to say see, we’re inclusive, our governing coalition includes Sunnis.
So despite the gloom and doom scenarios, it turns out that the Sunnis participated in large numbers, secular leaders were elected, and even a secular Ba’athist was elected in a Shiite area.
But don’t worry - it’s not impossible that a new insurgency will develop! And there are still lots of problems! This is the ‘bottom line’, apparently.
Why do I get the feeling that the writer would have been happier to see things go to hell?
None of these results are a real surprise if you’d read Iraqi opinion polling. Iran is not popular in Iraq. Nor are the theocrats. Most Iraqis are more than willing to work together regardless of sectarian differences.
Of course there are still problems. There will always be problems. Every country has problems. The U.S.'s political climate isn’t particularly rosy either, is it? The question is whether the problems portend gloom and doom, or whether on balance Iraq looks to be transitioning to a stable, functioning democracy. Looks like the latter to me.
That perception says more about you than about him. It is plain and obvious Dreyfuss wants the Coalition troops out of Iraq, and things going to Hell would make that problematic.
The fact remains is that the election’s results were even better than the optimists hoped for, yet the article still presented the ‘bottom line - of course’ conclusion that things are very bad, and discussed the timetable for removal of U.S. troops as ‘one good sign’. No, there were MANY good signs.
The tone of the article was basically, “Iraq is going to hell, but good news! We’re still getting out.”
The fact that a secular, moderate ex-Baathist was elected in a religious Shiite community is amazing, isn’t it?
There were also many bombings and assassinations. Take it all around, weigh the good and bad, and the Iraqi national handbasket is still stuck in Hell, or at least Purgatory. But, why do you even raise the issue? What, are you still looking for signs that invading Iraq in the first place was a good idea? I would have thought even you would have given up on that a long time ago.
Iraq, now mostly ethnically cleansed and partitioned and with the killings thereby substantially reduced, now has some hope of becoming Bosnia in other ways as well someday. Great.
Perhaps that’s the best that can happen now, but even so, it’s just sick to claim it as retroactive vindication for having loosed the dogs of war on them in the first place.
Gone are the good old days when Iraq kept the peace in the region. Saddam’s only flaw was that he occasionally passed gas in public. Never mind that the United States was a permanent police force babysitting a murderous dictator and our presence in Saudi Arabia was the driving force behind 9/11. That’s different…. somehow.
I have a hard time believing that Tehran could gain any kind of control over the Iraqi political process. Iran is not popular in Iraq. Opinion polls show wide distrust of Iran among all sectors of the Iraqi population.
The fact that they meet is no more evidence that Iran is taking over than is the fact that American politicians and regulators meet with their Canadian and Mexican counterparts.
Iran is Iraq’s neighbor. They have a need to maintain constant communications and negotiations. That’s no surprise. What’s more questionable is whether such meetings will translate into any kind of control over the Iraqi government by Tehran.
:dubious: If, during the Cold War, representatives of the U.S.-backed factions in a Third World country had met in Washington, DC, to discuss plans for putting together a government after a closely contested and still-disputed election with Communists on the other side, that would indicate a whole lot more than that they regarded Washington as a safe and neutral place to meet. It would, in fact, all by itself, be fair grounds for viewing whatever government ultimately emerged as a U.S. puppet.