Diffusion
Watching the news about the Iraq election in Australia, while Australians who are active and vocal partners of America’s in Iraq were reeling from the Cronulla race riots against Muslims, was another refreshing reminder of how interlocal and media spun the world is.
The December 15, 2005 election to choose the country’s first full-term parliament was hailed universally as a “historic day,” with a “great turnout.” There were over 12,000 Iraqi-Australians who cast their absentee ballots in Australia.
Iraqis were not voting for a united Iraq. They were voting for sectarian separation and the restoration of water and power and other basic necessities. The jubilant Iraqi voters were not excited about a democratic Iraq. They were excited about the prospects of a diffused Iraq. There were over 150,000 Iraqi soldiers and police on the streets with a backup of nearly 160,000 U.S. soldiers to prevent insurgent attacks. All automobile traffic and flights in and out of the country, except for the U.S. helicopters patrolling the air above, were banned. That’s democracy? There were also masked Sunni insurgents protecting polling stations in Sunni neighborhoods to ensure maximum Sunni voter turnout, especially in Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit? Why, for a representative government to hold Iraq together? Highly unlikely, the appearance of unity to hasten the removal of U.S. and coalition troops as Republican and Democratic leaders promise in America in the face of the looming 2006 congressional and 2008 presidential election there is more likely. Iraqis traded dictatorship for chaos and bloodshed in the short term in the interest of sectarian separation.
The fundamentalist sectarians took nearly 90 percent of the nationwide vote. The U.S.-British backed secular and nationalist parties and candidates lost big time, even though they ran well financed campaigns with slick television ads. Dr. Ayad Allawi’s ticket which included prominent Sunnis and Shi’ites won only 25 of the 275 seats – that represented a 38 percent loss from the number of seats won in the January election. Ahmad Chalabi, the former Washington darling did not even win a seat. Their dream of establishing a pro-western secular democracy in a united Iraq failed big time. Trying to build a coalition government of historic enemies -- who distrust and are reluctant to work with each other -- is doomed. The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance won 128 seats out of parliament’s 275 seats. The Kurdish Alliance won 53 seats, leaving the Shiites and the Kurds three seats short of the two-thirds majority needed to elect a president and push through constitutional reforms.
The Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front won 44 seats and another Sunni coalition won 11 seats and a few more Sunnis won seats on other tickets – while still complaining of election irregularities and promising to bring up in parliament election challenge to the Iraqi judicial system – something no one could do under Saddam’s Sunni dictatorship. The political combatants had 48 hours to appeal against the results of the December 15 election to a judicial commission after the electoral commission released final, but uncertified figures. The commission had two weeks to rule on the appeal before the final results were certified and the parliament could meet. “These big Sunni political groups will have limited influence on former Baathists who support Saddam, and no influence over Islamic militants,” said Hazim al-Naimi, a political science professor at Iraq’s Mustansiriya University.
The mixed result leaves the door open for militia groups and guerillas to continue their insurgency. Sunni Arab rebels claim they are digging in for a long fight with the next Iraqi government. “We’ll spread snipers in all of Iraq’s cities,” said Abu Huda al-Aslam, a senior member of the Iraqi militant group Mujahedeen Army Brigades, who served in Saddam’s army. A report released in early 2006 by U.S. Agency for International Development said the security situation in Iraq as dire, amounting to “social breakdown,” in which criminals have “almost free rein.”
America gerrymandered the election in the hope of getting a working coalition together to keep Iraq united. What it got instead is gerrymandered borders for three separate states at war with each other. The Iraqi columnist Nibras Kazimi summed it up best: “Iraq did not hold an election…it held a census.” No different than what happened in Britain between the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh before they united – and now have again separated. Much like America after independence from Britain -- that resulted in a civil war along sectarian and ethnic lines -- 19th century style – and today again divided into religious red and secular blue. The most recent Middle Eastern bloodletting contemporary example is the Lebanon 1975-90 civil war. The Americas, like Europe, Asia, Africa and other continents and regional groupings that will be engaged in the interlocal civil war of the 21st century unless traditional soft borders are redrawn and re-instated.
The December 15, 2005 election to choose the country’s first full-term parliament was hailed universally as a “historic day,” with a “great turnout.” There were over 12,000 Iraqi-Australians who cast their absentee ballots in Australia.
Iraqis were not voting for a united Iraq. They were voting for sectarian separation and the restoration of water and power and other basic necessities. The jubilant Iraqi voters were not excited about a democratic Iraq. They were excited about the prospects of a diffused Iraq. There were over 150,000 Iraqi soldiers and police on the streets with a backup of nearly 160,000 U.S. soldiers to prevent insurgent attacks. All automobile traffic and flights in and out of the country, except for the U.S. helicopters patrolling the air above, were banned. That’s democracy? There were also masked Sunni insurgents protecting polling stations in Sunni neighborhoods to ensure maximum Sunni voter turnout, especially in Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit? Why, for a representative government to hold Iraq together? Highly unlikely, the appearance of unity to hasten the removal of U.S. and coalition troops as Republican and Democratic leaders promise in America in the face of the looming 2006 congressional and 2008 presidential election there is more likely. Iraqis traded dictatorship for chaos and bloodshed in the short term in the interest of sectarian separation.
The fundamentalist sectarians took nearly 90 percent of the nationwide vote. The U.S.-British backed secular and nationalist parties and candidates lost big time, even though they ran well financed campaigns with slick television ads. Dr. Ayad Allawi’s ticket which included prominent Sunnis and Shi’ites won only 25 of the 275 seats – that represented a 38 percent loss from the number of seats won in the January election. Ahmad Chalabi, the former Washington darling did not even win a seat. Their dream of establishing a pro-western secular democracy in a united Iraq failed big time. Trying to build a coalition government of historic enemies -- who distrust and are reluctant to work with each other -- is doomed. The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance won 128 seats out of parliament’s 275 seats. The Kurdish Alliance won 53 seats, leaving the Shiites and the Kurds three seats short of the two-thirds majority needed to elect a president and push through constitutional reforms.
The Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front won 44 seats and another Sunni coalition won 11 seats and a few more Sunnis won seats on other tickets – while still complaining of election irregularities and promising to bring up in parliament election challenge to the Iraqi judicial system – something no one could do under Saddam’s Sunni dictatorship. The political combatants had 48 hours to appeal against the results of the December 15 election to a judicial commission after the electoral commission released final, but uncertified figures. The commission had two weeks to rule on the appeal before the final results were certified and the parliament could meet. “These big Sunni political groups will have limited influence on former Baathists who support Saddam, and no influence over Islamic militants,” said Hazim al-Naimi, a political science professor at Iraq’s Mustansiriya University.
The mixed result leaves the door open for militia groups and guerillas to continue their insurgency. Sunni Arab rebels claim they are digging in for a long fight with the next Iraqi government. “We’ll spread snipers in all of Iraq’s cities,” said Abu Huda al-Aslam, a senior member of the Iraqi militant group Mujahedeen Army Brigades, who served in Saddam’s army. A report released in early 2006 by U.S. Agency for International Development said the security situation in Iraq as dire, amounting to “social breakdown,” in which criminals have “almost free rein.”
America gerrymandered the election in the hope of getting a working coalition together to keep Iraq united. What it got instead is gerrymandered borders for three separate states at war with each other. The Iraqi columnist Nibras Kazimi summed it up best: “Iraq did not hold an election…it held a census.” No different than what happened in Britain between the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh before they united – and now have again separated. Much like America after independence from Britain -- that resulted in a civil war along sectarian and ethnic lines -- 19th century style – and today again divided into religious red and secular blue. The most recent Middle Eastern bloodletting contemporary example is the Lebanon 1975-90 civil war. The Americas, like Europe, Asia, Africa and other continents and regional groupings that will be engaged in the interlocal civil war of the 21st century unless traditional soft borders are redrawn and re-instated.
posted by Peter de Krassel's Custom Maid Politics at 9:58 PM
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