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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend....
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To: Sully- who wrote (7094)1/28/2005 7:17:13 PM
From: Sully-   of 35834
 
IRAQ

[Rich Lowry ]
The Corner

Was just talking to someone very knowledgeable who walked me through some of the process. This is how I understand it. The negative spin coming out of Sunday will be, of course, that the Sunnis are being locked out and therefore the insurgency will get worse. But there are many mechanisms to bring in the Sunnis. There is a three-person presidential council. It is extremely likely that a Sunni will be asked to serve on it. Members of that council have to be approved by a 2/3 vote of the assembly that is elected on Sunday, so there is incentive for its members to be broadly representative. Then the presidential council must unanimously pick the prime minister.

So, again, the PM is very likely to be, to some extent, a compromise choice. The PM then makes appointments to fill out the government. If he picks from individuals elected to the assembly there will be vacancies that have to be filled--creating the opportunity to put Sunnis in those slots in the assembly. Also, the assembly will likely appoint a constitution drafting committee, and it will include Sunnis. Many of the governmental mechanisms in play here are designed to require compromise. And it is true that Arab countries don't have experience with democracy, but they do have historic experience with people sitting down in a room and hammering out compromises.

That is what tribal leaders have done throughout all history. It was something that the much-maligned governing council was pretty good at, for all its flaws. So there is a chance that this election, even if the Sunnis don't turn out, will produce a government that represents a kind of (imperfect, of course) consensus of Iraqi society.
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